Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

You’re staring at him again from across the cafeteria. Eddie Munson is laughing loudly with his friends at their usual table near the windows. Your heart jumps into your chest every time you catch a snippet of their conversation. You aren’t trying to eavesdrop- okay maybe you are a little. But, they make it so easy! Eddie’s voice carries and you know that if people weren’t as judgemental then the drama department would be begging for his theatrics. 

Whatever they’re talking about over there, they look happy. Eddie was currently leaning over the table and was in one of his friends faces, but he was smiling maniacally as far as you could tell. You wanted to know so badly what they were saying, what it was that made Eddie smile so wide. Could you ever make him smile like that? 

Someone waves a hand in front of you and you snap out of it and look over at your friend, Stacy. 

“Are you gonna keep staring at him, or are you going to talk to him?” She asked, as she had at least once a week since the school year started. 

“Talk to who?” you replied, smiling at her. 

“You can’t keep pretending he doesn’t exist if you keep staring at him like the sun shines out of his ass.” She looked over at Eddie’s table where one of the freshmen had burped so loud even other tables were looking over. Eddie high fived the kid, and then discarded his jacket. 

He was wearing an Iron Maiden shirt that looked almost new-ish. You wished that Eddie was anyone else. Literally anyone else. If he was you’d be able to walk over to him, strike up a conversation about the band, ask him what his favorite song was. Talking to people was easy, but according to Hawkin’s High, Eddie Munson was no person. 

“Oh I can, and I will.” you said, and quickly looked at Stacy as Eddie’s head suddenly swung in your direction. You didn’t even think he was looking at you but having him looking anywhere near your general vicinity was far too much to handle so you looked down at your lunch instead. Pathetic. 

Stacy frowned and looked at you. “Go talk to him.” she said. 

“No.”

“I’m serious.”

“So am I. Absolutely not. What would I even say?” 

“You came up to me on the second day of school and started the conversation by asking if I’d rather fight a horse sized duck or a duck sized horse.” 

“It’s a good icebreaker!” 

Stacy all but shoved you out of your seat. “If I have to keep watching you make goo goo eyes at the freak, I’m going to barf. Just talk to him already!” 

You grabbed onto your sandwich wrapper in a feeble attempt to stop your ass from hitting the ground. It didn’t work. You groaned and stood up, glaring at your friend who shooed you off with her hands before returning to her own lunch. You flicked her off. She flicked you off back. 

You turned around and took a deep breath, clutching your trash so hard your knuckles almost turned white. Your brows furrowed and with shaking legs you started walking towards his table. That’s it, just one foot in front of the other. Just go over, say hi, tell him you like his shirt. 

It’s just small talk. It’s introducing yourself. It’s not like you’re about to go over and ask him on a date out of the blue! That’d be weird. You just had to walk the additional 30 steps to his table. 

You could hear his voice and you couldn’t tell if butterflies were fluttering around in your stomach or if you were going to be sick. Why, out of everyone in school, did you have to develop a crush on Eddie Munson? He was loud and chaotic and had a habit of getting into fights and rumor had it that he was in a shootout once, but no one could agree on the details. But he was also funny, and clearly so protective of his friends and his club, and you sat diagonally behind him in English and you practically swooned any time he was called to read because he was one of the few who would actually put in effort-

He was looking at you. Fuck fuck fuck fuck. Eddie Munson was looking directly at you as you walked towards his table. His brown eyes were curious but guarded, and becoming more guarded the closer you got to his table. 

You swerved around him and walked to the trash can that was stationed near the table and tossed your sandwich wrapper inside. You started walking back to your table, defeated, knowing that Stacy was going to just shake her head and talk about weekend plans instead. Maybe talking to him was too much to start with. Maybe a casual head nod or making purposeful eye contact would be better-

Someone grabbed your shirt as you passed by Eddie’s table making you jump and turn around in surprise. 

“Hey, sorry I forgot your name.” Zack, the kid in your science class quickly let go of your shirt, putting his hands up to show he didn’t mean any harm. 

You offered your hand and told him. “Can I help you…?”

“Oh yeah, I just got warned we have a pop quiz today.” He said. “You gave me that extra quarter last week when the phone ate mine. I figured I’d warn you.”

You felt yourself relaxing and you smiled. “Yeah, okay thanks.” you said genuinely. “I wasn’t exactly gonna leave you stranded over a quarter.”

“You saved my ass from having to walk home.” Zack sighed. “I still haven’t fixed my wheel on my board.” 

“Hope you get it fixed soon, and thanks for the heads up.” you said, and waved as you headed back to your table with Stacy. 

“How did I tell you ‘go talk to Eddie’ and you heard ‘make small talk with the skaters’?” she asked as you sat down. 

You groaned and shook your head. “I know, I know. I chickened out. He was looking at me, Stace. I panicked!”

“You’re hopeless.” she sighed. 

“You’re right.”

Henderson’s belch was the stuff of legends as Eddie cackled and high-fived the kid. The sound had echoed through the cafeteria so loudly that other tables were looking at the freaks with either disgust or amusement. 

It had been a good day for Eddie so far, all things considered. Higgins hadn’t tried to pull him into the office, the jocks had been ignoring him, and he had actually turned in his homework today. Small victories, but victories nonetheless. 

But as the reverberations of Henderson’s belch faded, and the students around him lost interest, Eddie felt like someone was watching their table still. 

Gareth nudged him and jerked his head towards a smaller table a few yards away. Eddie swung his head over just in time to see you quickly look away to talk to Stacy. He should be used to people not liking him based on his reputation, but for some reason when it was you glaring at him, it bothered him more than normal. 

“She’s always staring at you like you’re some sort of bug she’s trying to study.” Gareth snorted. 

“Shut up.” Eddie snapped. “I guess it’s better than being looked at like a bug she wants to step on.” 

“Kinky.” muttered Jeff. 

Everyone laughed and Eddie shook off the weird feeling that always came when you were around. He was used to people not liking him for no reason, but it bugged the shit out of him why you didn’t like him. 

Gareth nudged him again, not even a minute later and Eddie looked over to see you walking straight towards them. Towards him. 

You looked pissed. Your brows were furrowed, and your fist was tight. Were you really about to come over and pick a fight with him? He found himself wishing you would so he could figure out what your deal was. You made eye contact with him for a solid five seconds before looking away and walking around him to throw something in the trash can behind him. 

That was… fucking weird. Bizarre even. Why the hell had you walked across the cafeteria to the can closest to them when there was one closer to where you had been sitting? 

“Okay, that time she wanted to step on you.” Gareth laughed. 

“Yeah, I guess.” Eddie shrugged. “She can get in line.” 

You didn’t return to your seat though. Eddie noticed that you stopped at a table to talk to one of the skater stoners. A few of them were regular clients of his, especially Zack, the guy with the dishwater blond hair you were now smiling at and talking to with ease. Even now, he looked high off his ass. 

But there you were, smiling at him and chatting with him like it was normal. 

It didn’t last long, maybe thirty seconds before you make your way back to your table and went back to your seat. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see your friend (Stephanie? Tracy?) looking annoyed. 

The whole thing was a stupid, nothing, non-interaction. Eddie was used to worse on a daily basis. 

So why was it that for the rest of the day, he couldn’t shake the way you were glaring at him out of his mind?

Chapter Text

School assemblies were fun in their own way. You weren’t exactly brimming with school spirit but you could fake it for a half-hour when it got you out of your History class. Everyone was ushered into the gym at the end of the day to celebrate the sport season. You had no idea if the Hawkin’s Tigers were good or not, you could really only name two and a half people on the basketball team: Jason Carver, who you unfortunately had shared a free period with once, Lucas Sinclair, who you had seen talking to Eddie once in a blue moon, and Steve Harrington who had graduated, so he didn’t really count. You vaguely remembered working with him on some school project for two days and thinking that you just wanted to squish his hair down to see if it would spring back up. 

Stacy bounded over to you in the bleachers, decked out in more Tiger’s Green than a leprechaun. She shook the scrunchy out of her hair and slipped it onto your wrist. You sometimes wondered how she never became a cheerleader with how perky she was.

“There, now you look like you tried.” she giggled, nudging you. 

“I was gonna scribble on my face with a green dry erase marker, but Mr. Thompson’s had run dry.” You said. 

“He was probably lying so you wouldn’t steal one and huff it in the bathroom.” 

“Hey, that was one time and 4th grade math was hard.” you cackled. 

“Speaking of hard drugs, look who decided to actually show up.” Stacy smirked and your stomach instantly dropped as you followed her gaze. 

“What the fuck is Eddie doing here?” you whispered to Stacy. “He doesn’t do pep rallies!”

“Guess he does now.” she shrugged. 

Eddie was a few rows lower than you, leaning against the end railing of the bleachers. You vaguely wondered if he was burning up in that leather jacket, it wasn’t exactly cool in the gym with so many bodies all squished together. 

He was alone, looking like he’d rather be literally anywhere else. You didn’t blame him, this clearly wasn’t a place where he fit in. You looked down the bleachers in the opposite direction, unable to pick out any of his friends. During pep rallies, the bleachers were divided by grade, with Seniors on your end of the bleachers, and freshmen on the opposite end. Maybe Eddie was pressing himself against the railing to create his own section of Super Seniors. 

If he was anyone else, you’d join him in that section, but you kept that knowledge to yourself. 

“He looks lonely, go talk to him before they start.” Stacy encouraged. 

“Please, I doubt he’d want to talk to me at any other time. You think he wants to talk to me now?” you asked incredulously. 

“What’s the worst that could happen?” 

“He could convince me to join a cult and then sacrifice me to the dark forces.” you said, looking over at him. Well, it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world. 

Eddie’s head snapped up and he whirled around. Out of everyone around, his eyes immediately locked onto yours. 

Oh shit.

He heard that. 

His round brown eyes sized you up, and you cringed out of embarrassment for your stupid joke. You felt like a deer in the headlights. Eddie was looking at you, really looking at you for the first time and you were about two seconds away from jumping off the back of the bleachers and tunneling your way out of the school. 

Next to you, you could practically feel Stacy shaking as she tried to hold in her laughter, which unfortunately, triggered your own set of nervous giggling because this whole thing was so stupid and Eddie was still looking at you. 

He looked unimpressed, and flipped you off before turning back around to sulk against the railing again as the band suddenly started up, and everyone started cheering for the team. 

“Gotta say, I am nailing this, Stacy.” You laughed, leaning against her shoulder. “Practically had the boy swooning.”

“Yeah, he’ll be asking you out any day now.” She rubbed your back sympathetically. 

“I can’t believe he heard me. He totally thought I was being serious.” Your giggles finally subsided and you looked up at her. 

“It would be very easy to clear this up, if you’d just talk to him.” She said. 

“I don’t like it when you’re rational, you know.” you replied and glanced at him again. Eddie was no longer looking at you and was just fiddling with his rings as he watched boredly as Principal Higgens was giving announcements. 

You had to apologize. The last thing you wanted was for Eddie to think that you were really like that. You didn’t buy into the bullshit that some dice and graph paper could damn your soul to hell. 

“Fuck it, I’m going in.” you said, and turned to head towards Eddie. 

“Go get ‘em, Tiger!” 

You made your way to the edge of the bleachers, and three things happened in quick succession. First, Miles Cooper got overly enthusiastic as you passed by him, and his elbow made a quick and sharp connection to your stomach, knocking the wind out of you. The second thing that happened was a stray backpack got kicked right in front of you as you staggered from the shock of being elbowed. The third and final thing was you falling down the two benches of bleachers that separated you and Eddie.

“You can either go to the pep rally and act like you are a part of this school, or you can have detention, Mr. Munson. The choice is yours.” 

Normally, no one gave a shit if Eddie skipped out on something like a pep rally. That time was better spent either reading in an empty classroom or as a smoke break in the parking lot. He had just made it out to the parking lot before he was spotted and given the option. Eddie had been good about not skipping class this year, but he really didn’t want to give Higgins another reason to threaten to withhold his diploma. 

So there he was, leaning against the railing of the furthest bleachers so that the second the pep rally ended, he could just book it back to the van and leave to.. Somewhere. Uncle Wayne had work, and Eddie didn’t have a shift at the Hideout. There was no Hellfire today. 

Eddie was feeling restless as he fidgeted with his rings. Today had already been annoying and he really just wanted to sneak out to his van and have a smoke. It’s not like anyone here would miss him, they’d probably celebrate his departure more than the entrance to the basketball team. 

He looked down at his hands, taking his rings off and rearranging them on his fingers. He tapped them on the railing, listening to the sounds they made as he counted the seconds for this whole thing to be over. 

As his mind started to wander off, a voice snapped him back to the hell he was currently in. “-join a cult and sacrifice me to the dark forces.” 

It was always obvious when someone was talking about Eddie. Normally he’d let it go and ignore whoever it was, but he wasn’t exactly in the best of moods today. His head whipped around, looking for whoever was talking about him. 

There you were with Stacy, again. Eddie wished he could be surprised, but he wasn’t. His eyes narrowed as he looked you over. You weren’t dressed in anything that screamed “school spirit” except for a scrunchie around your wrist. 

He saw how you cringed at the sight of him, which only pissed him off more. What was your fucking problem? You were friends with Stacy, who had been on the cheer squad before her ankle gave out, the skaters liked, you liked everyone. Everyone who wasn’t Eddie Munson. 

Eddie had wanted to give you the benefit of the doubt, that maybe the two of you just hadn’t crossed paths enough. Maybe it wasn’t personal. But now, after hearing you say that you also thought he was some sort of demon worshiping freak he was fine to write you off as just another Hawkins student. Maybe then he could finally move past this weird feeling he had whenever you gave him the stink eye. 

Stacy started giggling next to you, and Eddie just rolled his eyes and turned away. It wasn’t worth it to start anything now at the pep rally. He was already on thin ice after being caught trying to skip. The sooner this was over the better. 

His attention drifted as Higgins droned on and on about school spirit and upcoming fundraisers and games. It was all background noise. In his mind, Eddie was working out the next dungeon that Hellfire was going to take on. His party was getting too used to his usual tricks, so he’d have to pull out something new to really throw them off-

There was a choked off gasp. 

Then a curse. 

Then a horrible cracking sound as something fell next to him.

“Jesus-!” Eddie jumped nearly a foot in the air as you hit the bleacher next to him. His eye nearly bugged out as he saw you sprawled next to him, clutching your stomach and gasping for air like a fish. 

Everyone in the section was still as they all stared at you, before a few started to snicker. Stacy was quick to jump down with far more grace and land by your side. Eddie was completely frozen, unsure of what to do until he heard Miles Cooper say- 

“It was Munson! He did it!”

Eddie’s head snapped to Miles, about to say something before a teacher sharply demanded the Eddie get off the bleachers and come down for what was sure to be a one-sided lecture and detention for something he didn’t do. 

He didn’t fight it, he was about to argue and cause a scene right now in the bleachers. Not when that teacher had a fire in her eyes that said she was just itching for trouble. Fine, he wanted to be as far away from this as possible. 

Eddie walked down the bleachers and followed the teacher out into the hallway. He was already tuning out the lecture about watching your body and not hitting girls. This was such bullshit, and he knew he couldn’t even fight back and defend himself. 

“Look, I didn’t touch her!” Eddie couldn’t stop the frustration in his voice. “She was behind me when she fell!”

“Witnesses say otherwise.” The teacher crossed her arms. 

“Look, just because that dumbass said it was true-” 

There was a loud CLANK as the heavy doors to the gym burst open and to Eddie’s surprise, you were rushing through the door, holding onto your arm. 

You made a beeline for him and the teacher and Eddie could already see it now. Your fake tears as you cried about how the freak shoved you down for no reason-

“Didn’t… do it.” you were shaking your head and panting hard. With your free hand you were pointing at Eddie. “He didn’t… he didn’t do anything… Miles elbowed me. Then I tripped. Eddie never…. Touched me.” 

Stacy was behind you and grabbed your shoulders, trying to hold you in place. “Eddie didn’t do anything, Mrs. Jane.” she explained. “She was just trying to go get some water and ate shit. Eddie had nothing to do with it.”

You nodded, still panting hard as if trying to catch your breath. Stacy was rubbing your back, and you looked like you were on the verge of tears. 

Eddie felt like he had just stepped into an alternate timeline. You were actually defending him? You were in that much pain but had still come running to claim his innocence? 

Mrs. Jane looked at you with concern. “Eddie, you may go back to the pep rally.” She dismissed him without so much as an apology for chewing him out. 

Fuck this. Eddie didn’t need to be told twice. He made his way back towards the gym, but slipped into a side hall. The pep rally was going to be over soon anyway, he might as well beat traffic. 

He paused just as he was out of sight. Fine, he was a little nosy and mildly concerned as you had just come to his rescue. 

“I… I think I hurt my arm.” you said, and he could hear the real pain in your voice. 

“I’ll take her to the nurse.” Stacy said. 

Eddie heard the sound of footsteps, and quickly slipped out of the school before Mrs. Jane caught him escaping. 

Yeah, he was going to need something stronger than a cigarette after this. 

Chapter Text

Miles Cooper was still at school the following week, which meant that he was given no consequences for what had happened to you or for blaming Eddie. 

Eddie couldn’t even say he was surprised by this point. If Eddie really had been the one to trip you up, he was sure he’d get suspended or even expelled. It was so close to the end of the year and he could feel that Higgins was looking for any reason to keep him from walking across that stage to get his diploma. 

You hadn’t shown up on Monday. Not that it mattered to Eddie either way, you two didn’t even know each other. But you had cleared his name. That was the thought that kept buzzing around his brain like a mosquito that he just couldn’t swat. Despite the glares and the snide remarks, you had gone out of your way to make sure that he didn’t get in trouble for something he didn’t do, which is more than what he could say for a lot of people at this school.

He had to give you credit for that at least. Not many people outside of his small friend circle would stick up for him like that. 

With work and band practice, it was easy to forget about you until Wednesday when you showed up to English class with a thick white cast around your wrist and arm. Shit, your fall really had done a number on you. You were struggling with juggling your books and they fell off your desk with a clatter, and you thanked the girl next to you for helping you pick them up. 

Eddie would like to think he was above eavesdropping and gossip, but he’d be wrong. 

“What happened?” The girl- Sarah- asked. 

“I face planted on the bleachers at the pep rally.” you said, taking your seat again. “One minute I was trying to get down, and the next I’m getting elbowed and my arm hurt.” 

“I heard someone pushed you” 

Eddie heard that emphasis on someone and gripped his pencil, hearing the subtle sound of wood splintering against his thumb. This was not the time to make a scene. 

“No one pushed me. Miles elbowed me and I fell.” you said firmly. 

You were still defending him, Eddie wasn’t sure how to feel. 

“If you’re gonna spread rumors, could you do me a favor and make it sound more interesting?” You continued, “Like, start telling people that I dived off the bleachers to distract everyone that Miles shit himself.”

Eddie snorted loudly before he could stop himself. He slammed his hand pencil down on the table and covered his mouth. Dammit, why did you have to be funny?

Sarah laughed, much less obnoxiously and agreed before asking to sign your cast. You must be covered in signatures now, as you seemed to be friends with everyone. 

Everyone except him. 

Not that it mattered. 

It was nice and all that you saved him from getting in trouble, but it’s not like you two were ever going to be friends, no matter how funny you were. 

Class started and Eddie spent the rest of class doodling and barely paying attention to the teacher. This was usually how his school days went. Yeah, he had been trying harder in the past two years to graduate and pass his classes but some days his brain just refused to focus on anything important. 

The bell rang and Eddie took his sweet time getting his things together. Next period was his favorite- lunch. 

“Shit.” He heard you mumble as you tried to wrangle your books with one arm. He knew there was a rule about not being allowed to carry around a backpack but, shit, Eddie would have thought you’d get some help. Shouldn’t one of those many signatures be offering to carry your books? 

Obviously not, as you finally managed to tuck your notebook under your arm. You looked flustered, and hot in the face. Your brows were furrowed in concentration and you finally let out a loud groan as your papers went flying everywhere as students for the next class started coming in. 

It was pathetic, and Eddie couldn’t exactly leave you stranded. You cleared his name, so at least he could try and help you out right now. Maybe he’d even figure out what your problem with him was. 

“Here.” Eddie said and grabbed the papers closest to him and picked up your binder before you could stop him. 

Normally when Eddie looked at you, you’d turn your nose up at him and look away. This time, he found himself giving you direct eye contact. Your eyes were wide with surprise that he had stepped in to help, followed by more frustration. 

“Thanks.” you said shortly. 

“Need help getting to the lunch room?” Eddie asked. He’d wait for you to say no, to tell him to get out of your face, and he can walk away with a clear conscience that at least he tried. 

You were staring at him as if he were some sort of alien who had just asked you why the sky wasn’t orange. Yeah ok, he could take the hint. 

“Yes.” 

The word sounded choked out, as if the single syllable was a struggle to say. But you had said it, and Eddie was a man of his word, even though he hadn’t promised you anything. 

Eddie stacked your notebook and binder on top of his. You were still staring at him as if you couldn’t believe he was talking to you. Eddie couldn’t really believe it himself. 

He’d do this small favor for you as a thanks, and then you two could go back to ignoring each other. 

“Lead the way.” He said, offering up his best impression of his dad’s smile. If he was lucky (which Eddie never was) then maybe some of his dad’s Munson Magic might rub off on him enough so that you’d at least relax a little. 

You only nodded and led him out of the classroom. 

You didn’t like the cast and it’s off-putting stark white bandages. You wanted to choose a different color- maybe red or black or even that weird obnoxious toxic green that was offered to you. But your mom decided that white would be better because it would make it easier to sign, so white it was. 

Your parents at least took pity on you Monday, letting you stay home to wallow in embarrassment that you had broken your wrist and fractured your arm in front of all of your classmates. Tuesday they released you back to school, but you had instead skipped getting on the bus (because you could not drive one-handed) and played hooky at the local library. It’s not like anyone would care that someone your age was skipping school. 

Wednesday came, and you forced yourself onto the bus, the first time you had used it since moving to Hawkins. The ride was bumpy and long, and your walkman ran out of batteries halfway to school. 

It wasn’t as bad as you thought it would be. A few people came up and signed your cast, some asking what happened. You just told them the same thing, that Miles elbowed you and you fell. It wasn’t as exciting as the idea of the school Freak attacking you, but you weren’t about to get Eddie involved in something that he had nothing to do with. You were just going to ignore the fact that Eddie had been the reason you were heading in that direction anyway. 

English class rolled around, and you spent most of it poking the inside of your cast with your pencil, trying to scratch an itch that just wouldn’t go away. It was bad enough that you had fucked up your dominant arm, but this was actually Hell. 

When the bell rang, everyone else seemed to be in a huge rush to get out of the classroom. Everyone but Eddie. Obviously. Because of course the one person you were trying to avoid was now slinking around you. 

Your long weekend, you had done your best to try and not think about him. You could handle falling in front of everyone else in school, but with Eddie it was different. Your stomach twisted as you remembered how he had yelled as you fell next to him and how he had looked at you as you had ignored your stinging arm as you ran out of the gym to clear his name. 

It was bad enough he had heard you make a poor joke out of context, you weren’t going to throw him under the bus either. 

“Need help getting to the lunch room?”

Your face was already hot with the embarrassment of not being able to carry your own books. Your backpack had ripped the second you got off the bus, and you lost your math homework to a puddle. You hated that he was still here to begin with, was breaking your wrist already not enough pain and suffering? 

You were staring at him. Fuck- dammit- shit say something back-

“Yes.” 

The word almost got stuck in your throat. The only reason it came out was that as painful and embarrassing as this moment was, what Stacy would do to you if she found out you said no would be far worse. 

Eddie dropped your books on top of his, and gave you a smile that looked so forced that you couldn’t stand to look at him. Was this being done just out of pity? You’d run for the hills if he wasn’t holding you binder hostage. 

You led him through the hallway, and towards your locker. “I need to put some things up.” you said, and he followed you. 

The hallway was already mostly clear, and so no one seemed to pay you much mind. You weren’t sure what the rumor mill would churn out with Eddie carrying your books, but did it even matter? Two more months and you’d be out of this school and none of these people would matter. 

No one except the young man following behind you. 

Eddie dutifully held your books as you put them away. The door to your locker stopped you from seeing his face, which seemed like the perfect time to take the foot out of your mouth that had been there since the pep rally. 

“…I’m… uh… I’m sorry for what I said on Friday.” you started, pretending to rifle through a folder. “About you being in a cult. It was a stupid joke and I shouldn’t have said it.”

Eddie was quiet for a moment, and you felt your whole body tense up as you waited for him to say anything. 

“Yeah we uh.. We aren’t big on sacrificing in Hellfire.” he said carefully. “Had to stop that with the club budget cuts.” 

You had to bite the inside of your cheek and close your eyes tight to keep from laughing. You covered it up with a cough. “Yeah uh… sounds like that’d be a lot of paperwork.” 

You took a slow and deep breath before closing your locker to look at him. He was smiling at you, a far less forced one than before. It was almost the same smile he gave his friends when he didn’t know you were looking. 

It wasn’t much, but it didn’t stop the butterflies from exploding in your chest. You should see a doctor about that. 

“Oh yeah, tons.” Eddie said. “And with all the letters we get about our club being associated with the Devil it was just a bureaucratic headache.”

I know that if I could just talk to him one then I’d be fine. You had told yourself that every single day since these pesky little feelings emerged. Maybe you had been right. The two of you made your way to the cafeteria. 

“You’re just some nerds playing with dice.” you said, and realize that could be taken the wrong way. “Not that there’s anything wrong with that. I’ve also… played board games.” 

God you were acting like a total airhead. Board games? Really? You were acting like your brain was broken rather than your wrist. 

You felt Eddie’s eyes on you, and saw how he also looked unsure about your answer. Whatever was going through his head, he brushed aside. 

“I should also thank you for clearing my name.” he said, changing the subject. “You came running out of the gym and saved my ass.” 

“I wasn’t going to let someone get in trouble just because I fell!” It was the most assured thing you had ever said to Eddie.

“Well, either way I’d say you’re my hero.” Eddie said. “I’m pretty sure if you hadn’t come running to my rescue I’d probably be expelled by now, and then who would be around to corrupt the youth of Hawkins?” 

Hero. Eddie called you his hero. You felt your body buzzing with an energy that you were not in a place to use. 

You two were in the cafeteria now, and you led Eddie over to where Stacy was sitting. Stacy, being the queen of subtlety that she was, was openly gawking at the sight of the two of you together. 

She was giving you a look, and that look said that the second that Eddie was out of earshot you would be giving her a play by play of every single second of this interaction. 

Eddie dropped your books on the table by Stacy.

“Hi, Eddie!” she said in a perky voice. You wanted to kick her, and shot her a warning look which she ignored. “Will you be dining with us today?” 

You wanted to rip your hair out. 

“As much as I would love to spend my lunch period with you two ladies, I’m afraid my freshmen wouldn’t survive out there in the wild without me.” Eddie gave a dramatic bow. 

“Thank you. For helping me.” you said stiffly. Being on the receiving end of Eddie’s theatrics was making your brain blow a fuse. 

Eddie gave you a nod and sauntered off to his usual table where he was immediately hounded by his friends for being seen with you. You wondered what they were thinking. Did you look weird next to Eddie? Were they judging you for not being part of their group?

“Stop drooling.” Stacy said. “Talk.”

Chapter Text

“The only reason she didn’t smack you was because she broke her arm.” Gareth said before downing the rest of his soda and crunching it on the table. 

“I didn’t do anything to warrant a smacking.” Eddie said, crossing his arms. This had gone on for the past few minutes, where the guys had been hounding him about being seen with you and an ex-cheerleader. “I was a gentleman and carried her books to the cafeteria.” 

“She looked terrified to be seen with you.” Gareth was reaching for one of Jeff’s tater tots and yelped as his hand was smacked away. 

“So what else is new? Everyone’s afraid of Eddie except us.” Grant shrugged which caused the rest of the table to laugh before Eddie shot them a look that made them all shut up. 

It was a blessing and a curse being the Freak of Hawkins High. Eddie knew that most people were afraid of him here, and that’s what he liked. Having people scared of him, or at least apprehensive of him, made it easier to keep an eye on his club. People moved out of the way when he moved through the hallways now, unlike his first four years of high school when he was pushed around. 

Maybe it was because after that first senior year, Eddie had hit another growth spurt and looked more adult than most of the students. Wayne had once made a dry joke that if he cut his hair and wore a nice shirt for once he’d be mistaken for a teacher. Eddie had taken that personally and had spent his last few dollars on a metal WASP pin that weekend. 

Eddie knew he looked dangerous to the average student, and a criminal to the average teacher. When Eddie looked in the mirror, he just saw himself. 

“Did she say why she saved your ass from being expelled?” Dustin piped in, stealing one of Gareth’s tater tots while he was still trying to take Jeff’s. 

“No, but she said she fell to distract everyone over the fact that Miles shit himself during the pep rally.” Eddie deadpanned. 

“That’s the closest you’ll ever get to talking to a cheerleader, congratulations, Eddie.” Jeff said, with a mouth full of tater tots, finding it easier to shove them all in his mouth at once rather than spend the rest of lunch fending off Gareth. 

“Ex-cheerleader.” Eddie said without thinking. He wondered if Stacy blamed him for what happened. She didn’t seem pissed at him though, then again you seemed to dislike him enough for the both of you.  

“Exactly.” 

Quickly losing interest in this whole topic, Eddie pulled out his cassette player, removed the batteries, gave them a good shake and put them back in before pushing play. The rest of the club went back to talking about other things. As for Eddie, he had been listening to the same damn song for a week to get the riff right. With the rest of the club growing sick of the song, it gave Eddie an excuse to bow out of the conversation for a moment. 

He glanced back over at the table you were at for just long enough to see you and Stacy having a heated debate about something. What was it that got you so passionate right now? 

You looked frustrated, but you usually did when he was around. 

The rest of the day passed by at a snail’s pace, with the days getting longer outside now and with how close he was to the end of the school year it was hard to keep momentum up. Eddie had come into this school year swinging, determined to pass those last few classes and get the hell out of here. But like anything that wasn’t D&D or music, the longer things went the harder it became. 

Senioritis was already bad, but for a 3rd year in a row? This was getting ridiculous. 

He thought back to this past summer where he sucked it up and signed up for summer school. Two classes over two months to show that he could count to twenty without taking his shoes off and say that Hitler was the one who killed Hitler and that gave him two shiny credits under his belt so that this year he only had to worry about Science and the PE class he had been skipping since middle school.

As much as it sucked, it was quick and easy and Eddie really just wished that regular school was as easy as summer school was. At least in summer school he was with the rest of the burnouts and future flunkies. No one there gave two shits about popularity. 

The final bell rang and he made his way to the parking lot towards his van. If there was one thing that his dad did right by him, it was leaving Eddie his van. His band and this piece of junk was his ticket out of Hawkins as soon as he had that diploma. 

Eddie passed the buses, taking the long way around as it was a surprisingly warm day for early Spring. 

His mind was distracted, wandering to the next time Corroded Coffin would practice- he needed to tune his guitar first, and check to make sure the amp was going to live to see another show, call Ronnie and-

THUMP

“Watch it!” Eddie turned and snapped as someone shoulder checked him as they rushed to the bus behind them. It was reflex, the past two years he’d dealt with this bullshit less and less and he wasn’t about to let it go now.

Eddie stopped as he made eye contact with you. You were gripping your arm and staring him down, caught between a snarl and a deer in the headlights. He met your gaze unflinching, until you blinked first and looked away. 

“Sorry.” you said before running onto the nearest bus. 

Shit. You probably hadn’t meant to actually shoulder check him. You had apologized, albeit reluctantly. If there was one thing he could give you credit for, you never went out of your way to be outright cruel to him. You just… didn’t like him. He could live with that for the next few months. 

Still, the sight of you running onto the bus stirred up the memory of the first time he remembered seeing you this past summer. You were always the first person on the bus in summer school. Guess that hadn’t changed. 

—

As long as you kept your headphones on and had a window seat, the bus wasn’t the worst thing in the world. You missed the freedom of being able to drive to and from school, stopping at gas stations for snacks or going to downtown Hawkins just to loiter around the shops. 

The first day on the bus was as peaceful as one could hope. Your personal mixtape was buzzing in your ear, you stared out the window as your peers were dropped off groups at a time at different stops. Some had parents waiting for them, some didn’t. You knew yours wouldn’t be. As soon as you hit freshman year, they swapped to the night shift deeming you old enough to take care of your own dinner, on your second round of summer school you saw them even less. 

Eddie was also held back, that wasn’t exactly a secret in the school and he could hardly pass as a pimple ridden teen anyway. That was also one of the reasons you seemed to gravitate to him. But while everyone knew about Eddie’s schooling history, having come to Hawkins late in your high school career, it allowed you a bit of extra discretion. Stacy was the only one who knew this was your second round of senior year. 

Your arm throbbed under your cast on the way home today, your face burning from embarrassment that you had almost had a nice conversation with Eddie earlier, but now he thought you shoulder checked him. You thunked your forehead against the window with a sigh. 

Eddie didn’t talk to you until the following Wednesday when the two of you were cornered by your teacher after the bell rang. You could see the look in Ms. Benson’s eyes what she wanted to talk about, but why was Eddie involved?

Ms. Benson handed Eddie his last paper, a C- scribbled at the top. Passing, but barely. Salt in the wound to you, and you looked down at your cast, picking at it. 

“You’re phoning it in, Mr. Munson.” she said. “I know that you don’t need this class to finally graduate but I don’t like mediocre work.”

You didn’t like that he was getting lectured when you were right there. Where was the decorum? The dignity? You wanted to crawl into the linoleum. 

Ms. Benson turned to you before Eddie could say anything. “You didn’t turn your paper in.” she said blatantly. She might as well have turned to Eddie and told him directly that you were a lazy dumbass. 

“I broke my wrist.” you said, more to the signature of Allie from gym class than to your teacher. If you had done literally anything else in class this year, then maybe that excuse could have worked, but you hadn’t and it didn’t. 

Ms. Benson took a look at you both and let out a long sigh. “I’m giving you both a chance to fix this.” she said. “I’m willing to offer you both extra credit to give you either a bonus on your final papers or replace a missing one.”

It was a good deal, a very very generous offer. Too generous-

“And what’s the catch, Ms, B?” Eddie asked skeptically. 

“I need volunteers for Spring Day.” she said. “You help with that, and I’ll give you the extra credit.” 

Spring Day was basically a free day where kids could either skip school or come for a slack off day. There were games, events happening at the gym, fields, and library, catered lunches, and plenty of ways to sneak off. 

“Sorry, no can do.” Eddie said. “I was banned from Spring Day. I have a hot date with in school suspension and you know how Higgins hates it when I cancel on him like that.” 

“I already cleared it with him.” Ms. Benson said, shocking Eddie. “As long as you stay away from the balloon pop booth.”

You saw Eddie smirk out of the corner of your eye. “I was framed, I swear.” 

“Of course you were.” She said dismissively. “So, I expect both of you to show up after school on Mondays and Wednesdays to meet me to help set this up. We only have a few weeks, and the budget is tight.”

Well, there was clearly no choice now. Just like that, you were now being volun-told to help with the one day a year you didn’t feel guilty about doing jack shit. 

“…Go away now.” Ms. Benson said, and you and Eddie didn’t need to be told twice. You turned tail and damn near ran out of the room. 

You were at your locked, struggling with the damn lock when you heard a voice next to you. “Do you think humiliation was also part of the extra credit, or are we just lucky?” 

Eddie had followed you to your locker, he was the last person you wanted to see after that. “I guess.” you mumbled, awkwardly shoving books in as you grabbed your lunch. 

You could handle feeling judged by teachers and your fellow students. That was the norm since you were a kid. God, Eddie was on his sixth year! Why did you care what he thought about you? Wouldn’t he understand better than anyone at this school what you were dealing with? 

You closed the locker harder than you meant to and Eddie winced. Shit. You had to say something to ease the tension. 

“…What did you do to the water balloons?” You asked, looking at him. Eddie smiled wide at you. 

“Allegedly I added some fun food coloring to the water.” he shrugged. “I didn’t think this school hated red and black so much.” 

You cracked a smile despite yourself. “It’s not exactly school colors.” 

“It’s not.” Eddie agreed, messing with one of his rings. His eyes darted past you, and you looked over to see Stacy walking over. 

“Eddie.” she nodded with a pleasant smile. Maybe too pleasant? No, that’s weird to think about your best friend. 

“Stacy.” Eddie nodded back. 

You had a weird feeling that there was a conversation going on, that you were in the middle of. You tried to shake off the thought, Stacy knew everyone. Stacy had a way of making everyone feel important, plus she was super pretty. You couldn’t blame Eddie for looking at her, and you tried to squash that glob of jealousy. Stacy was your best friend, she wouldn’t make a move on the guy you’ve been pining over. 

Stacy turned to you. “We’re sitting outside today with Nancy. She wants to interview me for the school paper.” 

“Wheeler?” you asked. “Uh, sure.” Stacy had so many damn accolades you didn’t bother asking which one she was being interviewed for. You’d read about it later. “Uh, see you on Wednesday, I guess, Eddie.”

“Yeah, see ya.” Eddie agreed as Stacy lead you away. 

“Wednesday?” she whispered with a glint in her eyes. “The second we turn the corner you’re talking.”

Chapter Text

“You’re old enough to buy your own now, you know. I’m only gonna up-charge you.” 

“What? Can’t a girl just buy some smokes from her friend?” 

“Right. Friends.”

“Fine, then I’m supporting a local business.” 

“What do you actually want, Stacy?”

“I’m just making sure that you two are going to play nice.”

“What the Hell? Shouldn’t you be telling her that?”

“She’s always nice.”

“Right, and I’m the queen of Sheba.”

“Well then, your majesty, just give me my smokes and I’ll be on my way.”

---

Bev wasn’t too happy that Eddie was going to be coming in an hour and a half later than expected on his Wednesday shift but she waved it off. The Hideout survived without him for god knows how long, the small dive could handle losing a busboy for a few hours on a weekday night. 

He sauntered into Ms. Benson’s classroom a fashionable ten minutes late, and a few dollars richer. You were already sitting at a desk chatting with Ms. Benson about who-knows-what before taking his own seat on top of the desk. 

If Eddie had to be here, he might as well rebel in his own way. He really would rather be bussing tables and trying to convince Bev to give him extra time on stage than do school services with someone who hated him. 

“Nice of you to join us, Mr. Munson.” Ms. Benson said, ignoring the fact that he was on his desk. She pulled out a thick binder and a rolodex that looked like it would fall apart if she didn’t hold it just so. “In here, you’ll find the budget for Spring Day and all of the different vendors and events that we’ve used over the past ten years.” 

Being the smart woman that she was, she placed the rolodex in front of you and dropped the binder on Eddie’s lap. He raised an eyebrow and flipped through it casually, as if looking through the Spring Day binder would provide him with secrets to the school that he could use to force Higgins to let him graduate this year. 

“There’s a phone in the teachers lounge you can use.” She continued, grabbing her own purse. “Let me know what you come up with on Monday.” 

“Wait- are you leaving?” You asked, jaw dropped as Ms. Benson started out of the room. “You’re not gonna help?”

“There’s only one phone. Just get some quotes for vendors. All of the information is in the binder. Just close the door tight when you leave.”  

Your mouth was still agape as Ms. Benson left, which was very amusing to Eddie. It was dead silent before Eddie burst out in a maniacal cackle that echoed through the classroom and made you jump. That also amused Eddie. 

“Well well, it looks like it’s just us in charge of Spring Day.” He got off the desk and dropped the binder down where he had just been sitting. Eddie leaned over the binder and flipped through it. “I’m thinking evil clowns, adding balloon popping back but with knives, and a petting zoo with snakes and goats.” Eddie turned and grinned wide at you. 

“What, no fortune teller to tell you how you’re gonna die a gruesome death?” Your voice was flat, but Eddie could pick up the hint of amusement in your voice which made his grin widen. 

“I’m sure we can dress you up in something covered in stars. I’ll sit under the table and shake it. We’ll make a killing!” Eddie laughed. 

“A killing? Really?” You shook your head at the terrible joke and flipped through the rolodex with a sour look on your face. Eddie hadn’t meant to make a pun, but if it annoyed you he’d keep it up. 

Play nice.

As if Stacy had any say over what happened between the two of you. He barely knew either of you.

“I don’t think we’re supposed to charge for anything, anyway.” you continued, flipping through the cards almost as fast as Doug flipped through long boxes at the comic shop. 

“What doesn’t kill Higgens won’t hurt us.” Eddie pressed, not even fully invested in the idea himself. Something about his talk with Stacy just got under his skin, and the only way he could shake it was by getting under yours now. 

“I don’t think half of these businesses even exist anymore.” you said to yourself as you kept flipping through the rolodex with your good hand. Eddie sighed and figured you were ignoring him until you continued. “This laundromat shut down last year. I heard it was a front for some mafia and there was a shootout.”

Eddie perked up a little, had that been an attempt at playing along? It wasn’t completely in line, but everyone in town knew that the laundromat had just been flooded from the inside when a pipe burst. 

“There’s no mafia in Hawkins.” Eddie said, looking over your shoulder at the rolodex. “Only cults that sacrifice people to the dark forces.” 

You stopped messing with the rolodex, and Eddie wasn’t sure if he’d said something wrong. You had apologized before, maybe it was too soon to joke about it? 

Eddie was usually good at reading people, but you were harder to understand. 

“So, what’s the budget that we’re supposed to be working with?” You asked, changing the subject. 

“Three pennies and an expired coupon for Benny’s.” Eddie replied, flipping back to the first page. 

“Yeah, that sounds right. I guess there’s no room in the budget when the basketball team needs new jerseys or the cheerleaders need pom-poms.” you rolled your eyes, done messing with the rolodex. 

Eddie was a little surprised at the dig towards the cheerleaders, considering your best friend was one. Had been one. Why the hell had she wanted to buy smokes from him today?

The two of you finally got up and made your way to the teacher’s lounge. Ms. Teedee, the art teacher, gave him a half hearted wave as she finished washing her coffee cup. Eddie liked Ms. Teedee, she didn’t give a shit about his reputation. Art and shop were the only classes he had ever done consistently well in, so when he was saddled with a third senior year he decided to re-take art as an easy A. 

The two of you spent the rest of the afternoon calling places and taking down numbers. You did most of the talking, but Eddie took charge when you got up to use the bathroom. 

Eddie was surprised when you came back, well that you came back. He wouldn’t have been surprised if you had run for the hills and left him alone. But you did come back, two bags of chips in hand. One of them was offered to him. 

“Thanks…?” Eddie didn’t mean for that to come out as a question, but it did anyway. How was it that one minute you hated him, but another you were apologizing? You were scandalized to be left alone with him to work on this, and yet came back with food. 

He shouldn’t trust it, but he also wasn’t too good for free snacks. 

“So, what’s your deal?” Eddie asked, timing his question with you shoving a few large chips in your mouth. 

“Huh?” was your graceful reply as you covered your mouth with your hand. He could see that his timing was not appreciated, which made him feel better. 

“Your deal. Which of these fine cliques here at Hawkins Hell do you belong to?” Eddie elaborated, spreading his arms as if gesturing to a crowd when in reality he was gesturing to the table the phone was sitting on. 

You took a moment to finish chewing, giving him a glare as you finally got the chips down. Okay, maybe Eddie felt a little bad for that, as you had been nice enough to get him a snack. 

Play nice.

He was a dungeon master, he wasn’t known for playing nice. He could at least play fair though. 

“I don’t belong to anyone.” you said finally, flipping through the binder and not looking at him. “I got in late, made friends with Stacy and… I don’t know. This late in the game, cliques aren’t exactly taking new applicants. Not this close to graduation when everyone has known each other since elementary school.” 

Eddie looked at your broken wrist again, looking at all the different signatures. For someone who didn’t belong to any group, you sure were on everyone’s good side. 

Everyone had some group they belonged to. That’s how high school worked. The Freaks sat with him, the Jocks sat with their teams, the Science Nerds sat with the science nerds… that’s how high school- no, that’s how the world worked, according to Eddie. 

Your response would normally have you tucked away as “new kid” or “freshman” but neither of those fit you. You knew too many people. You hung out with an ex-cheerleader, but you weren’t exactly jumping around with excitement at the last pep-rally. Stacy still dressed like a cheerleader, and was just as nosy as one but you didn’t look popular. 

Not that there was anything wrong with the way you looked to Eddie, you just didn’t look or dress like the popular crowd. He could tell you apart from the near identical wave of perms and ponytails. 

What was your deal?

When Eddie didn’t respond in an appropriate amount of time for you, you responded with the same question. 

“What’s your deal, Eddie?” His name sounded foreign coming from your mouth. 

“Huh?” he asked, shoving a chip into his own mouth, mimicking you. You rubbed your face and let out a laugh, to his surprise. 

“What’s your deal? Or, I guess what’s Hellfire’s deal?” You clarified. 

“Well, you see, it’s a fantasy game-” 

“Not a cult?” 

“I can neither confirm nor deny that.” 

“Go on.”

You didn’t interrupt him again as he started explaining the bare basics of the game, figuring that you were just looking for an excuse to stop calling people for a moment. That was fine with Eddie, he’d happily sit here and rant about his favorite game in the teachers lounge, tainting the warden’s space with the game that they tried to hide away from the rest of the inmates. 

What he didn’t expect was for you to be listening so intently. You were looking at him, really really looking at him. If Eddie didn’t know any better, and he liked to think that he did, you seemed to be actually interested in the world he was opening up up to you. 

His eyes glanced down at your cast, and the curly signature of Chrissy Cunningham shimmered slightly on the underside of your cast. Eddie could barely make out her last name, but he could assume that the glitter gel pen signature belonged to the cheerleader. 

That reminded Eddie that, popular or not, you were still in a completely different world than him. One where people actually liked you and didn’t sneer at you for bullshit reasons. 

But then why were you looking at him so intensely? 

“So you’re playing make believe with dice and if you roll high you can do things and if you roll low you eat shit.” You said, crumpling up your bag of chips. 

It was a grossly simplified explanation of the game that Eddie had poured hundreds of hours into. 

“Yeah, basically.” At least that had killed a good fifteen minutes. 

“And you’re god.” You added, which Eddie did appreciate. 

“No, I’m Satan, remember?” He flashed you his most charming smile and you just laughed again. 

“You aren’t that bad.” You sounded like you meant that. 

“Tell that to my players, they say I’m worse than Satan.” He said with pride. 

Your conversation was interrupted by the bell, announcing that any clubs needed to pack up and leave. Eddie took that as your cue that you were done. 

You closed the binder and the notes that you two had taken over the past hour and took a deep breath. 

“Wait, shit, Mrs. Benson left. What do we do with this?” You asked, motioning to the binder and rolodex. “Do we just leave it here?”

Eddie wouldn’t have thought twice about just dumping it on one of the tables and leaving. He still had his shift to get to, but… 

“Come on, we’ll drop it on her desk.” he said, and walked out of the lounge before you could protest. 

You caught up to him a moment later, glaring at him for ditching you and leaving you to scramble with your things. Eddie wasn’t sure if he liked you more when you looked like you were hanging on his every word or looking at him with annoyance. Maybe Eddie just wasn’t sure if he liked you. He sure couldn’t tell if you like him at all. 

“It’s locked.” you said. 

“Barely. Make sure no one’s coming.” Eddie squatted down and pulled out a thin strip of plastic from his coat. He could feel his eyes on him and he looked up at you as you gaped. “Not me, look out for anyone else.” he clarified. 

Once you had looked away and down the hall, it didn’t take more than a few seconds for Eddie to jimmy the lock open. He grabbed the rolodex and the binder from you before you knew what was happening. 

Eddie had broken into the classroom, dropped the items off the desk, and slipped back out into the hallway in less than a minute. 

“How’d you learn to do that?” you asked, following him out towards the parking lot. 

Eddie just shrugged. “I’m a man of many talents.”

It was cool outside, the winter weather seemed to finally be on its way out. A small beep signaled you to the sleek car that Stacy drove and you waved at her. Being the good friend that she was, Stacy had offered to drive you home that night. 

“I guess, I’ll see you next week.” you said to Eddie. 

“Same bullshit time, same bullshit place.” he agreed, watching you hop into the car before heading off towards his own van and drive off. 

---

“It wasn’t a date, it was school.”

“Did you make out in the teachers lounge?” 

“No, I gave him a hand job in the janitor’s closet.”

“The one by the gym, or the one by the science lab.”

“The gym. Smelled worse but at least there weren’t any dangerous chemicals.” 

“No, really, tell me what happened.”

“We called different places to get quotes for Spring Day. He also talked about Dungeons and Dragons for fifteen minutes.”

“And then you made out?”

“No.”

“But you wanted to.” 

“….Stacy, I’ve never wanted to blow someone more in my entire life.”

Chapter Text

This was not a good idea. Well, Stacy thought it was a good idea. You were unsure, even though it was your stupid idea. 

“It’s a store. You’ve been in a store before.” Stacy sighed as you stared at the small game shop that the two of you were parked in front of. 

“Yeah, but not this store.” you pointed out. “This is so stupid. Let’s just go do something else.” 

“Oh no, you begged me to bring you here and so you’re going to do this. It’s a store. They sell things. You want to buy things.” She opened up her door and stepped out of the car and marched to the front of the building and waited there for you. 

You had begged her, and that was the most embarrassing thing. In your euphoria of having Eddie talk to you about Dungeons and Dragons you had asked Stacy to take you to the game store in town to pick up your own copy of the game manual to learn. It seemed so simple in the heat of the moment; get the manual, learn the rules, impress Eddie by playing his game and then he falls in love with you. 

And Stacy, being the good friend that she is, agreed to the plan after laughing her ass off. 

You got out of the car, seeing no other choice but to commit to this plan. She held the door open for you as you both entered the store. It was small, and there was a slight musky scent to the room. There were a few guys hanging around the back, huddled over some sort of card game and you were met with some odd looks. That didn’t really surprise you though, you didn’t think that many girls came in here, especially not ones that looked like Stacy with her perfect perm and lipgloss smile. 

The shopkeep looked unimpressed as you made your way to the counter. 

“Makeup shop is down the street.” he said, looking back down at the comic he was reading on the counter. He had messy dishwater blond hair, and his crooked name tag read CHRIS.

Any nerves you had suddenly vanished, as now you were just pissed. What the fuck was that comment about?

“Actually, I’m here to pick up a copy of the Dungeons and Dragons manual.” you said, stepping up to the counter. The cashier didn’t move his head, but his eyes flicked up at you. 

“Original or advanced?” he asked. 

“Advanced.” You said confidently, not knowing the difference or that there was more than one version but advanced had to be more impressive, right? 

The cashier rolled his eyes and pointed vaguely in the direction of a rack on the far wall, and you saw that Stacy was already looking at the different items. You made your way over and scanned the shelves until you found the manual for Advanced Dungeons and Dragons. There was a lot more in the section than you had thought. There were several books filled with what looked like stories about the game, but you didn’t have much to go off of what you remembered Eddie talking about. You held the manual as you scanned the other books, your eyes landing on something called The Tomb of Horrors. You picked it up and flipped through it for a moment, figuring out that it was some sort of companion to the game. Were all players supposed to have these? 

“The art’s cool at least.” Stacy said, looking over your shoulder. “Lot of numbers though.”

“You literally tutor me in math, I don’t wanna hear it.” You countered.

“You won’t find any princess fairytale in that.” A voice said, and you turned to see the cashier, as well as the rest of the store staring at the two of you. 

“Excuse me?” you asked.

“I’m just saying it’s a fantasy game but it’s serious business,” he said. “I’m sure if you go to another store there are games that are more your speed.” 

“Excuse me?” you repeated yourself, your cheeks now burning. “And what’s that supposed to mean?”

“Look, it’s cute that you come in here all dolled up but this is a serious store so if you’re just here to look at pictures you’re gonna have to leave.” 

You really didn’t like the way he was looking at Stacy, and it made your blood boil. “Dude, what the hell is your problem? I’m here to buy something, do you want my money or not?!”

One arm or not, you were fighting the urge to deck this guy in the face. 

“Okay, I see we aren’t wanted here.” Stacy said quickly, pushing you towards the door. You stared at her, as she flipped her hair and gave the cashier a look that baffled you. “I’m, like, so sorry to bother you all. I was just so curious about the game my cousin was so obsessed with.”

The cashier faltered for a second, and if you weren’t so pissed you’d find it funny how quickly his brain seemed to have turned to mush. 

“Well uh- if you really wanted to know about the game I’d be more than happy to teach you. Maybe set up a little one on one-”

Oh, gross. You quickly turned heel and walked out of the shop to Stacy’s car feeling all sorts of bogus feelings. 

Stacy was right behind you thirty seconds later. “Car. Now.” she said, and you wasted no time getting in as she sped off before you could even put on your seatbelt. 

“You owe me.” she said firmly. “What a creep! Ugh, you’re lucky you’re my best friend.” 

“This was such a stupid idea.” you said. “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize that the store would be… that.” 

“Whatever, buy me a milkshake and we’ll call it even. You better have that book memorized next time you see Eddie.”

What book-

“Oh fuck, I didn’t pay for these!” you stared at the two books in your hand. 

“Duh, as if I’d let you spend money in there.” Stacy said. 

“Stacy!” you gasped. 

“Yes?” 

“The only reason my parents let me hang out with you is because they think you’re a good influence.” 

“Their problem. Anyway, I actually really like the makeup store in that plaza and now I’ll have to avoid it for at least a few weeks so make it three milkshakes.” 

Your little grand theft nerd book probably saved you about fifteen bucks, so yeah, you owed Stacy big time for this. 

“And fries.” you agreed. 

“That goes without saying.”

The weekend passed by with no further petty crime, unless you counted the backstory that you created for a thief character. You still weren’t very certain that you did all the math correctly, but you tried. 

The manual was the most helpful, and you recognized terms that Eddie had used that had flown right over your head when he had talked so passionately about the game. The Tomb of Horrors was more interesting but you had a feeling that you weren’t supposed to be reading this. It was a module, something that only the Dungeon Master would use to guide the players through the game. Reading it felt like cheating, even if you weren’t in Hellfire. 

It didn’t stop you from reading it all in one sitting, though. 

Monday rolled around, and you had spent so much time learning a game that you had forgotten to study for your English test.  

No. You didn’t forget. It was painfully in the back of your mind the whole time you were messing with paper and dice. But the louder that knowledge was, the more you focused on reading the books instead. 

You did the best that you could on Ms. Benson’s test and, not wanting to be the first one to turn it in, you spent the rest of the time staring at the back of Eddie’s head like some lovelorn teenager. Which you were. 

Eddie spent more time on his test than you, and you watched as he would write something, then erase, and write again. Occasionally he’d tap his pencil and stare up at the clock. You wondered if DIO was any good. Maybe if you were any kind of artist you’d been sketching the lines of his shoulders and the way he’d run his fingers through his wavy hair. You thought that his jacket and the denim vest made his form look older, more filled out maybe. It could also be that Eddie was a year older than you, and thus 2 years older than most of the seniors. 

After half the class turned in their tests, you walked up to turn yours in as well. You considered ‘accidentally’ brushing against his arm as you passed him but that felt too desperate. 

God, you had it bad. This felt pathetic. You didn’t give a shit about how anyone else here felt about you, but your IQ dropped into the single digits at any sight of Eddie.

You spent the rest of class re-reading the handbook under your desk, and stealing glances at Eddie who finally turned his test in about ten minutes before the bell rang. 

At least he tried. The thought was just as much praise for him as a jab at yourself. 

The bell rang and you got up and shoved the book in the new backpack that you had gotten permission to use to carry your books while you were still in a cast. Your wrist was twinging today, but you could ignore it for the most part. 

Eddie didn’t even look at you as he left the classroom. Why would he? A small conversation last week didn’t exactly make you friends but you wanted to try. 

---

In the time between arriving at school, and taking Benson’s test, Eddie had managed to study for a solid twenty minutes, which was about twenty minutes more than he had with most tests. It was better than nothing, and at least he could tell Wayne that he had tried. 

He doodled on the margins of the paper, hoping that Benson would be amused enough to maybe pass him a few bonus points. It had worked only once last year in science, but that didn’t stop him from doodling on every test since. 

The rest of the day passed by without much to report, it was only when Eddie was sitting in his van, getting ready to get the hell off Hawkin’s High property that he remembered that he had to report back to his parole officer (Benson) with his fellow inmate (you) to break some rocks (call random businesses in town). 

You were already in the classroom, staring at the binder with the notes you all had taken last week. 

“I’m grading tests today. Use the lounge again to make calls.” Ms. Benson said, grabbing a stack of papers from her desk. 

And those were all the marching orders the two of you received before making your way back to the teachers lounge. Eddie didn’t get why you two were still doing this. Last week the two of you had called pretty much everyone in the rolodex and had handed in all of the quotes given. 

“Is there anyone who we didn’t call last week?” Eddie asked, grabbing two chairs and dragging them over to the phone. You were already holding the binder and rolodex one handed. He could at least pretend to be a gentleman for now. 

“Some didn’t bother answering so maybe we call them again?” you suggested, plopping yourself down in the chair. 

Of the seven numbers left, you got 4 to answer and only one of them left any sort of helpful information. 

“Did Ms. Benson ever say how long we were supposed to be helping with this?” You asked, messing with the phone chord. The two of you were done, but neither of you had made a move to go back to the classroom. 

“Few weeks. Sounded like she was going to have us single handedly take care of Spring Day.” Eddie sighed. 

You stared at him blankly. Then to your cast. Then back to him. And then back to your cast. 

“That’s not what I meant!” Eddie said. “Not my fault you took a nosedive off the bleachers.”

“I did not!” you protested. “I threw myself down valiantly to distract our peers from the fact that Miles shit himself.”

“You should have let him fend for himself.” Eddie said, trying to hide the bitterness in his voice.

You paused and looked at him for a moment with that same intense expression. Maybe you really were trying to study him like a bog. 

“I… was going to talk to you that day.” You said, and Eddie didn’t miss a slight waver in your voice as if you were nervous. “It had nothing to do with Miles.” 

Eddie couldn’t mask the shock on his face. “Me?” Why the hell were you trying to talk to him that day?

“Yeah I-” your nerves were throwing him off. He had always expected you to pick a fight with him every time the two of you made eye contact. “I made that stupid joke and you heard and I wanted to come over and apologize. Then, Miles elbowed me and I tripped and…. Yeah.” 

“Really?” Eddie was usually a master of words and bullshit, but this was rendering him speechless.

“Yeah. It was a really stupid joke and you looked pissed and flipped me off and I felt bad.” You, the person who always gave him dirty looks, felt bad? And you had been trying to come to him to-

“Shit. So it’s my fault you broke your arm.” He realized. If it had been anyone else, then he probably just would have rolled his eyes that day and ignored you but he’d made a show of making sure you knew he heard you. 

“Wrist. And… what the fuck are you talking about?” There was the pissed look he was used to!

“If I hadn’t flipped you off, you wouldn’t have hurt yourself.” 

“If I hadn’t made a stupid comment I wouldn’t have needed to apologize!” 

Seeing you so worked up about this amused Eddie greatly. He felt bad that you had broken a bone on his behalf but knowing that you had done that plus saved his ass from expulsion gave you some points in his book. 

“You’re probably the one one in this hell hole to ever apologize.” He said honestly. “I doubt anyone else would have apologized and then cleared my name.”

You just stared at him for a long time, an expression on your face he found frustratingly unreadable. Your furrowed brows said that you were pissed, but your eyes… well Eddie always knew when someone was looking at him with contempt. This wasn’t it. Confusion maybe? Frustration? Maybe you were pissed that you felt bad and broke your wrist? He wasn’t going to push it, especially when you were still looking at him. 

“So… should we go see Benson since we’re done with this?” he asked after you had stared at him like this for about ten seconds longer than he was comfortable with.  

It’s not like there was anything else the two of you could do so you just nodded. “Yeah, sure.”

Eddie grabbed the binder and rolodex and kicked his chair back to its rightful place. When the two of you left the lounge, you made a move to turn left, but he turned right, in the opposite direction. 

“Where are you going?” you asked. 

“Takin’ the scenic route.” Eddie didn’t even bother turning around as he kept walking. 

You stood there like an idiot for a moment before jogging to catch up to him. “There’s a scenic route?”

“Yup.” Eddie said. You’d either join him and he could try and figure you out, or you’d ditch and go running to Benson. By the look on your face when she mentioned grading tests, he didn’t think you’d be in a rush back to the Warden. 

Eddie led you to the end of the hallway and opened up a door that led you both outside. It was chilly out, and you wished you had grabbed your jacket from your bag but it was such a pain to put on with the cast. 

You were now playing hooky with Eddie Munson. Well, shirking your semi-detention duties which was close enough. 

Okay. You were alone with the guy you’d been pining for, and he was hanging out with you in a seemingly willing way. Just talk to him. Ask him a question. 

“Would you rather fight a horse sized duck or a duck sized horse?” you asked. If it was a good enough ice breaker for Stacy, it’s good enough for Eddie. Hopefully. 

“Duck sized horse.” Eddie said instantly, looking at you. “Every time.” 

If he thought the question was stupid, he hid it well. 

“Explain yourself.” you said. 

“A horse sized duck would be too powerful.” Eddie explained, leading you past the football field and into the woods. “Ducks are made of evil and hatred, and I’d rather punt a small horse than deal with that.” 

Okay, so that was an answer you were not expecting. “Ducks are evil…?” you asked. 

“Oh, very evil.” Eddie said, as if it was the most normal thing in the world. 

“….Chaotic, lawful, or neutral?” 

Eddie stopped walking to stare at you with wide eyes, and you felt your face heat up painfully even in the cool air. 

“Neutral.” Eddie finally said. “I’m sure there’s some duck code that I haven’t cracked, but as far as I’m concerned they’re all the same base evil across the board.” 

“I think geese would be chaotic evil.” you offered as the two of you started walking again into the woods. “I had one that would randomly attack me in my old neighborhood every time I walked down the street.”

“Most waterfowl are some flavor of evil.”

“Maybe swans are lawful?” 

The two of you sat on an old abandoned picnic table, and Eddie lit up a cigarette. 

“So, you were paying attention to my little lecture last week.” he blew the smoke away from you as he exhaled. “I figured that you would have forgotten anything I said by now.”

How could you? You’ve been replaying that moment in your mind over and over all weekend. Not that you could tell him that. 

“It was interesting.” That was putting it mildly. “It sounds like a lot of fun, honestly.”

Take the hint take the hint take the hint take the hint-

“I love it. We’re close to wrapping up this campaign, too. If they don’t royally fuck over my plans then everything should be wrapped up in a nice little bow by the end of the school year. It’s getting serious, and none of them are allowed to skip out on Hellfire unless they are actively dying.” 

The hint flew right past him, running off into the woods while carrying your hopes and dreams. Of course, trying to join this late in the year with only a few weeks left of school would be impossible. It would be like trying to join the basketball team right before the championship game. 

“You really take it seriously.” you looked over at him, taking in his profile as he took another drag of his cigarette. 

“As serious as the plague.” He exhaled. “It’s the only thing that keeps me coming back to school most days. Well, that and I promised my uncle I’d graduate.” 

“Your uncle…?”

“Yeah, I live with him.” 

You wanted to ask more, but this was the first time the two of you had really had a conversation. Would it be weird to ask more?

“Where do you guys live?” Nope, that was too weird and personal to ask but you did anyway. 

“Forest Hills.”

He didn’t say it was the trailer park, but he didn’t need to. The answers were short, and you could take the hint he didn’t want to talk about his personal life. You’d take any scrap he’d throw at you.

“Have you always been the Dungeon Master?”

And off he went again, his eyes lighting up as he regaled you with the rise of Hellfire. How his best friend Ronnie had dragged him to this weird club at someone’s house and he had been hooked ever since. When the original DM left, Eddie took over. His first campaign had been clunky, but the more he dove into this world he created the better it got. 

The more Eddie talked about the game, the worse your attraction to him got, and the more you mourned any opportunity to be part of his world. Your feelings for him aside, it really did sound like a lot of fun. 

The bell rang far too soon and you and Eddie booked it back to Ms. Benson’s class. You handed over the notes and information you gathered and she dismissed you both with a waive of her hand. 

“I guess I’ll see you Wednesday.” you said as the two of you made your way to the front of the school. 

“Tomorrow.” he corrected. “Unless you plan on Benson’s class tomorrow.”

“It’s tempting.” You wonder how quickly that failed test would get back to you. 

The two of you passed a group of cheerleaders who were giving Eddie dirty looks before they really noticed you next to him. Two of them- Chrissy and Emma- smiled and waved at you. You gave a smile and waved back, hoping that they took it as a sign that Eddie was more than welcome to be walking next to you. 

“You’re friends with everyone, huh?” Eddie asked when they were out of earshot. 

“Not really?” His question was confusing. Other than Stacy, he was the only other person who you had any consistent alone time with, and that was because he was being forced to. “I talk with some of them sometimes but we’ve never hung out. I think I just don’t offend them.”

“I didn’t think you were the cheer type.” Eddie waved his hands as if waving imaginary pompoms and you couldn’t help but laugh. 

“Nah, I’ve never been in with any cheer squad, unless you count the Field Day in elementary school. I twisted my ankle and was given some fake pompoms to wave while all the other kids played.” 

“Oh, so hurting yourself during sport themed activities is a hobby of yours?” Eddie asked. “There are easier and less painful ways to skip gym.”

“Oh, now you tell me!” you feigned shock. “I wish you had told me earlier.”

“Happy to be of service.” he bowed dramatically. 

Outside, you spotted Stacy standing by her car and chatting with a boy. Fresh meat. You thought to yourself. 

“It’s probably because you’re friends with her.” Eddie said, looking over at Stacy. 

“Huh?”

“I mean, she was on the team before. If one of those girls likes you, then the rest will at least tolerate you.” 

“…Stacy was a cheerleader?” you snapped your head at him. That would explain so much, but why didn’t you know this? 

“You didn’t know?” 

“I guess not.” 

“HEY! YOU NEED A RIDE OR WHAT?!” Stacy yelled from across the parking lot. The guy she was chatting with was gone and she was waving her arms. You mentally added pompoms to her hands and suppressed a laugh. 

“I guess that’s my cue.” you said. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” 

“If I don’t skip.” he winked at you and headed towards his van, so casually, as if he didn’t just make your little heart explode and your knees weak. 

For the first time ever, you were actually looking forward to school the next day.

Chapter Text

Your wrist had ached all day, and you blamed the weather. What was originally promised to be a mild spring day had turned into a rather warm and stormy one. Normally, you loved this kind of weather (as long as there was no tornado warning), but with the pain in your cast it only annoyed you. 

In Ms. Benson’s class, your mood was dampened further as your tests were passed back. You didn’t need to look at it to know that it wasn’t going to help you with your grade in class. You tried to pay attention in class, you really did. But no matter how much you stared at the book you were all supposed to be reading, the more your mind drifted to other matters. How could you get Eddie to let you at least sit in on a Hellfire meeting? How could you thank Stacy for sacrificing her favorite makeup shop while you two let the heat die down? You really didn’t have an interest in Spring Day but you really wanted to spend more time with Eddie. 

You wrote down character ideas, occasionally glancing at Eddie. You ran through each class and race in your mind, trying to come up with different combinations. You were leaning towards elf or half-elf, and a more magical class but maybe you should try something with brute strength? Or maybe something more complicated to impress Eddie?

Okay, no, that was a bad idea. Stealing and learning the game was pathetic enough, you had to make sure you were at least doing part of this for yourself. And there was the problem, you were a little overwhelmed with choices on what kind of character you’d make if you were allowed in Hellfire. 

When the bell rang you had written out every single combination of the class and race list, marking the ones you thought would be most interesting. The rest of the page was filled with dumb joke characters. 

They were stupid, but it was important to get the stupid out. The harder you tried to think of what you might actually want to play (not that you could anyway) the more blank your mind became. Sometimes, having too much creative freedom was stifling. 

And so, Fighter Betty of the Crocker clan, the Wizard TAB, and Ziggy Stardust the Druid, were shoved into your backpack, between the pages of the handbook you were carrying around when the bell rang. If anything, they amused you and that’s all that would matter. 

You took your time when the bell rang, trying to figure out a way to talk to Eddie or say hi or make any sort of small talk. 

Why was it that you didn’t have this problem with anyone else in this stupid town?!

You were so focused on thinking about Eddie, that you completely missed that he was standing right in front of you.

“Uh- what?” you blinked, realizing now that words were coming out of those very pretty lips of his. 

“Do you need help with your books?” Eddie asked slower, pointing to your backpack. You couldn’t tell if he was talking slow because he thought you were an idiot, or because he smelled so subtly like weed. 

“Yes. Yeah, yes.” you tried to get your mouth to work. You tried to pretend he was Stacy or… shit, you didn’t have any other friends here. 

Eddie grabbed your bag and you followed him out the door to your locker again. What a strange sense of deja vu. 

“How’d you do on the test?” He asked as you opened your locker. 

You tensed and shrugged. “About as well as I thought I’d do. You?” 

Eddie shifted in his spot. “Yeah, about the same.” 

You glanced at him, seeing how uncomfortable he looked. Had you both failed? You shouldn’t be surprised, but you were. 

“I guess our not-detention is gonna be awkward. Hopefully, Benson’ll leave us alone to do whatever task she has for us.” You sighed as you swapped books and grabbed your lunch box. 

“Maybe we can sneak out again.” Eddie suggested. 

“If we do that there might not be a Spring Day. Shouldn’t this be the student council’s job anyway?” you asked. “I don’t see why she’s so bent on us making this happen. No offence.” 

“None taken.” Eddie held up his hands. “I have as much school spirit as a rock.” 

“You looked like you would have been anywhere else during the pep rally.”

“I tried to skip, but I got caught.” He ran his fingers through his hair with a world weary sigh. 

“Try breaking your wrist next time. It got me out of it.” you lifted your arm to show off your cast. 

“You broke your wrist trying to apologize, I wouldn’t apologize to anyone in this shithole.” Eddie said. 

You wanted to be offended, but you couldn’t blame him. If you were Stacy, or if he were anyone else, you might bat your lashes at him and ask if that also applied to you, but you couldn’t. You weren’t Stacy, and Eddie was still Eddie. 

“Not even your friends?” you settled on. 

“If I had an issue with one of my friends we’d talk about it.” Eddie looked at you, a sharpness in his eyes that made you want to shrink. Why was he looking at you like he was accusing you of something? You had apologized, right? And he’d accepted! Did he want you to apologize again? 

“Thank you for delivering my friend safely, Eddie.” Saved from the awkward encounter by arriving at the lunch table with Stacy. “Are you sure you won’t be joining us?” 

“Alas, I am still honor bound to my little gang of misfits.” Eddie sighed holding his hand over his heart.

“Fine, be a buzzkill.” Stacy replied. “Shoo.” 

You couldn’t decide which was worse, Stacy shooing the love of your life off or Eddie giving you that accusatory look. 

The look. That was worse. 

“One day he’ll either eat with us or ask us to join them.” Stacy said, trading her cookie with the pudding cup in your lunch bag. 

“You could go over there and sit with them, and they’d be too stunned to tell you to leave.” You laughed. “You’d be Queen of the Freaks by the end of the period.”

“I could, but that’s a title I’m saving for you.” Stacy said supportively. 

“Hey Stacy, were you a cheerleader?” You asked as you remembered your conversation with Eddie. 

“Hm? Oh, yeah. I didn’t tell you that? So embarrassing.” She shook her head. “I was on the squad for about two and a half years before I got kicked off.” 

“You got kicked off?” you looked at her in surprise. 

“Yeah, I got caught smoking. Turns out that’s a big no-no when you’re on the squad.” Stacy was saying this like it was just a bad date she had been on. 

“Smoking? Since when do you smoke?” This was also news to you. You had never seen her with a cigarette or even a lighter before. 

“Only socially.” Stacy said. “It’s not a big deal. I’m not exactly torn up about it. I was only on the team because mom made me, and because I didn’t want to get rusty in gymnastics.” 

You had known that Stacy had been very into gymnastics in her younger years, there were few medals and trophies scattered in her room. You glanced over at a table on the far side where a few jocks and cheerleaders were. 

“So, why aren’t you sitting with them? Are you not friends anymore…?” you couldn’t help it, you were a little nosey and wanted to know more about your best friend. 

“Of course.” Stacy looked confused. “Chrissy Cunningham is one of my dearest friends.” 

“Then why are you sitting with me and not them?” Any insecurity you might have had was overrun by confusion. 

“Because that’s not what we do here.” Stacy said, as if it were the most normal answer in the world. “You sit with the cheerleaders and jocks if you’re a cheerleader or a jock.” 

“But… you’re friends.” you said slowly. 

“Yes.” 

“….Are you sitting with me out of pity? Please be honest with me.” 

“No, dumbass, I’m sitting with you because we’re friends.” 

“I… I don’t get it.” you sighed. 

“Listen, I know things might have been different before you got to Hawkins, but this is just how things are. I’m sitting with you because you’re more interesting than the latest basketball or football game. Plus, with you I have more options.” 

“What?”

“Well, you’re an anomaly.” Stacy said. “You came in late, and so you don’t have an assigned group that you’ve been with since Kindergarten. You talk to whoever you want, and you haven’t made any enemies with anyone here. People like you, you know.” 

“You make it sound like I’m popular or something.” You said. 

“Not popular, but something else.” Stacy gave you an analytical look. “If you had really tried, I think you could be in any group you wanted.” 

“Any group except one.” you glanced longingly at Eddie’s table. He seemed to be in a good mood now, if the impromptu air-guitar solo he was performing was anything to go by. You didn’t know what song he was listening to through his headphones but he seemed really into it. His friends seemed less impressed as they talked amongst themselves.

“I can’t believe you’re really this intimidated by Eddie Munson.” Stacy rolled her eyes. 

“Why not? Everyone else seems to be. And stop distracting me! If you have other friends why aren’t you sitting with them? Or why are you sitting with me? Or why aren’t we sitting with them?” 

“You’re taking this so personally.” Stacy pat your shoulder. “I’m here because I want to be, I don’t sit with them because I don’t want to, and I don’t invite you to sit with them because you’d be miserable and they wouldn’t appreciate the drama that is your crush on the Freak.” 

You groaned and rubbed your face. “At my old school we just sat with the people we liked and called it a day.” 

“Good news, I like you so it’s not that different.” Stacy said. 

The rest of lunch was uninteresting, as you and Stacy talked non-stop about the worst gossip and her latest date. You stole glances at Eddie, wondering if what she had said was true. Could you have been part of that group if you hadn’t had your head so far up your ass? You had tried so hard to not make friends this year. You just wanted to take your diploma and go. 

The storm was picking up when the final bell rang, and your wrist twinged in annoyance as you bumped it while grabbing the books you’d need for the homework that you weren’t sure you’d even do. Ms. Bensen wasn’t expecting you and Eddie for at least fifteen minutes, enough time for the school to clear out and the buses and cars to make their way out of school. 

Feeling restless, you made your way to the lesser used side parking lot that was reserved for teachers and any former alumni who knew that if you were picking someone up there’d be less traffic. Under the awning, you were taking just a moment to get some fresh air and enjoy the stronger gusts of wind after a day of stale school air. You doubt you and Eddie would be able to sneak off anywhere to hide inside the school, and you didn’t want to assume that he’d want to anyway. 

Amidst the sound of the rain, a faint sound of wheels on concrete drew your attention. Zack, the skater from your science class, was sitting by the payphone rolling his skateboard back and forth as he stared out into the parking lot. 

“Payphone eat your quarter again?” You asked, walking over and leaning against the wall next to him. 

Zack looked up, recognition crossing his face and he shook his dirty blond hair. “Nah, not this time. Just waiting for my older brother to come and pick me up. Can’t board in this storm.” 

“I think it’d be surfing at this point.” You nodded, watching deep puddles start to form in the parking lot. 

“Heh, no kidding.” 

There was a comfortable silence between the two of you for a moment before a car pulled up in front of you. Instead of Zack running to hop in, the driver hopped out and hurried under the awning while the car was idling. 

Zack’s older brother looked strikingly like him, but with much longer hair and thick glasses. Under his denim coat he was wearing an ADCD t-shirt and an old faded pair of jeans. He took off his glasses and used his shirt to wipe off the rain. 

“Dude, get back in the car I wanna go home.” Zack groaned. 

“In due time, young one.” His brother patted him on the head, condescendingly. “I have a side-quest that I must complete before we go.” 

Why was this guy talking like Eddie?

“You there, what is your name?” He said, looking at you. 

You stuttered out your name, not expecting to be acknowledged. 

“What is your quest?” 

Quest? Why did this sound familiar? And why did you feel like you were being tested? 

“To just- fuckin’ survive.” That was the only thing you could think of at the moment. 

He smirked and pushed up his glasses.

“And what is the airspeed velocity of a swallow?” 

Oh fucking hell, you were caught up now on what he was doing. 

“African or European?”

The smirk on his face morphed into a genuine smile, and he offered his hand. “Good answer. I’m Kenny, Zack’s brother.”

“Can you stop being weird around all my friends?” Zack groaned as you shook Kenny’s hand. You and Zack were friends?

“How else am I supposed to know you keep good company?” Kenny shrugged. 

“I do have a real question for you, because my brother is useless-” 

“Hey!”

“Do you know where I could find one Relgar, the half-orc?” 

“Could you please talk like a normal person, dude?” 

You had no idea who the fuck Kenny was talking about, but you could narrow it down. 

“I don’t know who you’re talking about, but Hellfire Club meets on Fridays.” you said. 

Kenny seemed to light up more. “Excellent! It’s Tuesday so I have no reason to be here any longer. I wanted to drop something off if he was still around.”

“Thank god.” Zack muttered. 

“Which one is Relgar?” Curiosity killed the cat-

“Nowadays he is known as the most sadistic Dungeon Master that has ever dared to run a game in Hawkins.” Kenny said. “But in school he just goes by Eddie.” 

-But satisfaction brought it back. “Munson? I’m actually about to see him. I can deliver it.”

“Are you in Hellfire?” Kenny asked. 

“Not exactly, but I’m going to see Eddie in a second. We have extra credit we have to work on.” You said once again. 

“Extra credit? That doesn’t sound like Eddie.” He looked at you suspiciously. 

“Man, come on, just give her the damn thing so we can go home. You already said she’s cool, and she loaned me a quarter once so I could call you before.” Zack groaned. 

“Well, if Zack says I can trust you then I have no choice. Besides, MacGyver is almost on and I don’t want to miss it.” Kenny pulled a booklet out of his jacket that you recognized as a D&D module and handed it over.

“Let’s go.” Zack groaned and hopped into the car, using his board as the worst umbrella in history.

“That better get to Eddie, or I’ll know about it.” Kenny said. 

And that’s when you had to run for your life because you had all of 30 seconds to get your ass to Benson’s classroom. You were panting when you finally dropped down into the desk next to Eddie. 

“Nice of you to join us.” Ms. Benson said dryly. She placed some papers between the two of you. “Look, I am trying to help you both out. You both know what you got on your last test. I’m giving you this chance to try again. Put your desks together, get your books out. You two can work together, it’s open book.” 

“That’s… generous.” you said, looking up at her. 

“I’m tired of seeing adults in high school.” 

“Ouch.” Eddie winced. “And here I thought we were finally getting along.” 

“We’ll get along better once you’re gone.” Despite Ms. Benson’s flat tone, there was a hint of a smile on her thin lips. 

Eddie was close. Too close for your comfort, but also not nearly close enough. Eddie had grabbed your desk and pulled it over to his, so that you two were sitting very very close to each other. You had never been so close to him before, and you were sure you were going to get a worse grade now that you could see the details in his heavy rings. 

The space was crowded, and you tried so hard to keep to your own space. The two of you took turns reading the questions, and flipping through the textbook the two of you were sharing. You did everything you could to focus on the make up test. 

It was hard to tell if Eddie’s presence made the test easier or harder the second time around. On one hand, you wanted so badly to not look like a complete idiot in front of him; on the other hand you could feel your brain turn to mush every time his arm brushed against yours. 

Eddie was a leftie, you noticed. 

“At least the vocab section is easy.” Eddie leaned over to look at the glossary, and your brain was threatening nuclear meltdown with how near his voice was. 

You sucked it up, and over the course of the next 30 minutes the two of you managed to cobble together something that had to be a passing grade. 

“Eddie, your handwriting is awful.” you said without thinking, staring at the chicken scratch on his paper. “Even if everything’s right, you can’t pass if she can’t read it.” 

“She can read my writing.” Eddie said, waving you off. “Isn’t that right, Ms. B?”

Ms. Benson didn’t look up from her papers. “I’ve grown accustomed to reading hieroglyphics.” 

You looked over your papers, made Eddie re-write a few words on his test and the two of you finally turned in your tests. 

Ms. Benson put aside what she was working on and immediately graded the tests right in front of you both. She looked at the final grades, then her grade book, and then back at the tests. 

“Good enough.” she declared, and handed them back. There was a B written at the top in red marker. “You’re done here.” 

“Pleasure doing business with you.” said Eddie as he turned to leave the classroom. 

That was it? No Spring Day work? Fine, at least that was over. You followed Eddie, now having a full half hour before your mom was supposed to pick you up. Maybe you’d just hang out in the library until then- 

You lost Eddie. 

You were so lost in your own world that you blinked and the guy vanished from sight. Normally, this would not have been a big deal and you’d simply lament that he was no longer in your vision. However, you had something in your bag that you had promised to give him and you were hardly about to let this opportunity to talk to him again run you by. 

So you picked a direction and hoped that it was the right way. 

Your first instinct was to go to the parking lot where his van would be parked but it was still there. You stood outside for a few minutes, but gave up on waiting when some asshole leaving detention splashed you with his car, leaving your front drenched but your backpack was thankfully dry. 

Fuck everything, you had one job and you’ve already blown it. You did your best to dry yourself off in the bathroom before circling the school three times. You were so pissed, you were wet, your wrist hurt, you didn’t give Eddie his stupid D&D module, and you were ready to just give up.

You tried to tell yourself that there was always tomorrow, but that didn’t bring you much comfort.  

The telltale sound of someone getting slammed into a locker echoed through the hallway. 

Keep your head down, don’t make waves, and just get your diploma and go. Don’t get involved, don’t make friends. You aren’t gonna be here long enough. Besides, you already told yourself that you were giving up today. 

Your feet ignored your brain and you ran towards the sound.

When you turned the corner you found the standoff in one of the less frequented hallways. A basketball player looked like he was ready to throw down while Eddie was picking one of his freshmen up off the ground. You recognized the curly hair and brightly colored shirt, topped with a baseball cap but you didn’t know his name. 

You did know the basketball player, he was in your remedial math and was always talking louder than the teacher. You had no idea what the fuck was going on, and you should probably mind your own damn business but as usual your brain was ignored. 

“Holy shit, Danny! I’m so glad I found you!” you rushed over, putting yourself between him and Eddie. You hoped that being still wet from the rain made you look pathetic enough to distract him from whatever he was pissed out. 

Danny had not anticipated anyone to catch them and he looked at you dumbfounded. Then his eyes drifted down slightly and you resisted every urge to cover your chest. Why the hell did you wear a white shirt today?

Between him glancing down at your chest, and up towards your face in confusion it gave you enough time to think of a lie as to why you were interfering. 

“I- uh-” You faltered, and found yourself shaking. What the hell were you doing?! “I- I forgot the homework!” your voice sounded as if you were in pain. “Please tell me you wrote down the assignment. If I- if I don’t do it then my grade will drop to an F and my mom will actually kill me.” 

Danny opened his mouth a few times like a fish and looked behind you at Eddie and his freshmen. There was still a spark of fire in his eyes. 

“Look, give me a second and I’ll-” 

“Forget about the freaks, I need your help!” Your voice was loud and shrill, and so unfamiliar to you. Anxiety shot through you, and you hated that you had to resort to name calling. There was no way in hell that Eddie would ever want to sneak off with you now for any reason. 

Danny was shocked and just looked behind you, with a resigned expression. “I’ll deal with you later.” he said and ushered you towards his locker. 

Something hot slid down your face as you followed Danny. Oh, fuck it all you were crying. Frustration tears had welled up and were sliding down your face and you wiped them away with a wet sleeve. 

Fuck today. Breaking your wrist at the pep rally wasn’t as humiliating as this. 

Danny finally handed over a torn up piece of paper which had the page number and problems you were supposed to do tonight. 

“Here.” he said, looking at you with pity. 

“Thanks.” you managed to choke out. “I mean it. You’re saving my ass.” 

“Just let me copy your work tomorrow before school and we’ll call it even.” Danny shrugged. 

You had wanted to skip school tomorrow, but now you had no choice. Now you actually had to do these stupid problems as well. 

“Sure.” You stared at the floor in shame. “…What were you doing with those guys anyway?”

“Dipshit freshman pissed me off.” he said. “Had to teach him a lesson, but then the Freak showed up.” 

“Why are you picking a fight with a freshman so late in the year?” you asked. “If you got caught, all of you probably would have been in big trouble. I heard Mrs. Click stopped Patty Marshall from walking the stage at graduation because she got into a shouting match outside her classroom.” 

This was a big fat lie, but you were willing to do anything to get the basketball team to leave Eddie and his friends alone. 

Danny slammed his locker shut. “Whatever. He’s not worth the effort anyway. You better meet me tomorrow so I can copy your work.”

“Right, right.” you said. “Yeah, I’ll meet you.” 

You hurried out of school, pissed and cold and your stupid eyes were still leaking. Mom was already waiting out front for you as you got into the back seat.

From where you were, you couldn’t see that Eddie was watching you from his van as the storm picked up over Hawkins High.  

Chapter Text

Eddie felt confident about three things about himself; he knew he was a good Dungeon Master, he knew that he was skilled on guitar, and finally he was able to get a fairly good read on people if they could talk to him like a normal person for three fucking minutes.

That third thing was very helpful with the first. By knowing his players and how they worked and what made them tick, he was able to craft amazing stories that were satisfying to his players and their characters. 

It was also helpful when Eddie was earning his extra money on the side. Knowing who was genuinely safe to sell to was important when it seemed like everyone and their mother had a target on his back for no good reason. Stacy had been safe to sell to with her no-bullshit approach. The art kids were a safe bet in most cases when they needed to be “inspired”. And Chrissy Cunningham… well, he gave that shot but she never showed up. 

You had talked to him as a person the day that the two of you had snuck off for a smoke break when you were supposed to be calling businesses. You made small talk with him about his club. In those moments you treated him like an actual person, and he thought that maybe he had been wrong about you. 

And then he walked into school and saw you talking to Stacy. You looked pissed and Eddie, being the virtuous man he was in a small town, decided to eavesdrop on the conversion. 

“What’s your problem this morning?” Stacy laughed as you rummaged through your locker as best you could with one hand. 

“Eddie. Eddie is my problem. He’s always my problem.” You groaned. “I’d be perfectly fine and dandy otherwise.” 

Right, of course. You were just humoring him these past few days. Eddie always thought that you wore your emotions on your sleeve like he did. You had shown your dislike, but he thought you would have calmed down after the time you had spent together. 

Eddie kept listening though, because he wasn’t about to be that dipshit that heard something out of context just to misinterpret it. Maybe you weren’t talking about him. Maybe there was another Eddie he didn’t know. Hell, maybe you had a personal grudge against Van Halen. He’d have to judge your taste, but at least it wouldn’t be about him.

Why did he care so much?

“I’m really just exhausted.” You sighed. “I’m feeling too much at once lately, and all I want is a normal boring day. Between the wrist, my grades, Benson, and the whole Eddie thing- I’m just about running on fumes.” 

The whole Eddie thing. So there was a thing with him. Was he why you were exhausted? No, you just said it was more than him. Eddie found himself hoping that he was closer to the bottom of the list. 

The two of you had, what he had thought, was a really pleasant conversation when the two of you hung out behind the school. You had listened to him talk about his hobby, you two had discussed the alignments of water fowl. Eddie thought that things were going to be more amicable between the two of you. 

Guess not. 

Eddie moved away before he was caught eavesdropping. 

He tried to shake it off. It’s not like this was unusual; Eddie was used to people (usually his customers) playing nice in private and then ignoring his existence once back in society. 

It just didn’t make any fucking sense to him, no matter how he turned it in his mind. Those people never listened to him ramble about his game, let alone remember enough details to bring up so naturally with him. 

The whole Eddie thing. The conversation between you and Stacy shifted to other things and Eddie walked away. He’d rather you just come out and tell him what was wrong rather than just seeth at him from a distance. Everyone else in this shithole had the decency to make it clear what about him they didn’t like. And what a list there was! His hair, his clothes, his music, his grades, his speeches, his outspokenness, the way he’d lean into being a Satan Spawn to piss everyone off even though it was a load of bull- there was a long list that you could pick from!

If anyone had to make a guess, it was probably because you were so quiet about your dislike that pissed him off. If you would have just given him any of the reasons you didn’t like him then he could shrug it off and move on. Eddie wasn’t as self-aware as he would assume he was in this situation, and so your continuous ire irritated him to no end like a scratchy tag on a new t-shirt. It was always just barely there, no matter how much he wanted to ignore it. 

All he needed was one reason to drop it and to just carry on. And so, at the end of Benson’s class he offered to carry your books for you again and escort you to the cafeteria. You had gaped at him for a moment, probably for continuous nerve he had to speak to you when others were around, but accepted his help. 

The small talk was nothing to write home about; the test, Spring Day, your “extra credit”, and of course the infamous Pep Rally Incident. 

“You looked like you would have been anywhere else during the pep rally.” you had said. 

“I tried to skip, but I got caught.” Eddie had been skipping pep rallies for so long, and no one had ever given a shit before. In his humble opinion, they should be begging him to stay a thousand feet away from the gym at all times, lest his lack of school spirit affect and disillusion his fellow classmates. 

“Try breaking your wrist next time. It got me out of it.” Eddie hated that you amused him. Why were moments like this so easy, but you always looked at him so intensely? What was The whole Eddie thing?  

“You broke your wrist trying to apologize, I wouldn’t apologize to anyone in this shithole.” Eddie said without thinking. He’d be willing to apologize if he was wrong, being no stranger to humble pie as one Ronnie Ecker would know. Other than that one summer of groveling so that he wouldn’t lose his best friend, there was no one at Hawkins Hell that was worthy of his forgiveness. 

“Not even your friends?” 

“If I had an issue with one of my friends we’d talk about it.” Eddie looked at you, hoping that you’d get the hint. He just needed one reason, a single reason why you didn’t like him so that he could file you away with all the other people in this town. 

He tried to pinpoint the expression on your face. Surprise, or maybe embarrassment for being called out? Whatever it was, Eddie had struck a nerve and he knew it. 

Stacy, the busybody, interjected before you could say anything and promptly shoo’d him away when he declined to join them. 

The rest of the school day went by as usual. He did get caught trying to skip last period but as he was already serving Benson after school, he was let off with a warning this time. Eddie was beginning to suspect that the teachers here were growing bored of targeting him, especially with graduation looming over the horizon.

Eddie pushed aside his pride as he pulled your desk towards his as the two of you worked on the test. He tried to ignore your presence, pretending he was a wizard deep in study as the two of you poured over the books. He tried to imagine you as a toad, but your hair looked (and smelled) too nice for that. A cat would have to do. Eddie wasn’t particularly fond of cats, but they always seemed to like him better than anyone. 

With the test turned in, and with his dismissal, Eddie booked it out of the classroom with you not too far behind. He made sure to give you the slip, not wanting to be more of a thing than necessary. 

Outside, it was pouring rain and he was parked on the far side of the parking lot and he really wasn’t in the mood to get drenched or struck by lightning. So he figured he could dick around school while teachers and clubs continued their more voluntary after school activities save for the detention room where Eddie passed by and waved with a wiggle of his fingers to the teacher. 

He supposed it would have been too much to ask that the rest of his day could go by without incident. 

“Forget about the freaks, I need your help!”

What the fuck had that been about? Everything had happened so fast, he barely had time to register it until him and Dustin had been out of Danny’s sight. The cause of the fight didn’t matter, Danny had probably said something stupid and Dustin had said something too smart for his own good and Eddie had shown up seconds after Dustin had been slammed into a locker. 

It had been a while since someone had picked on his friends. Eddie had made a point to be such a spectacle that the worst that they could expect most of the time was a snide remark or a look. No one wanted to fight someone who they thought was genuinely out of his mind. 

The incident would have been unremarkable if you hadn’t shown up, drenched to the bone and screaming about homework. You looked almost as insane as he had felt. Was that your way of trying to help, or were you that shook up about your school work that you demanded help from someone who had probably never even opened a book before? 

“That’s the girl that keeps staring at you.” Dustin said, once they were out of the way. “Guess she saved our asses.”

“Right. Saved.” Eddie said, not fully convinced. He had met a lot of people in this small town, but none of them were as confusing as you. 

Once Dustin was safely in his mom’s car, Eddie ran through the rain to get into his van where he cranked up the stereo as loud as it could, hoping to drown out his thoughts. If that didn’t work then a sample of his stash at home would. 

Eddie would know Kenny’s copy of The Shady Dragon Inn anywhere. The edges were singed from the time the original dungeon master decided it would look cool to set the front cover on fire a little to give it the feel of having been burned by a dragon. There were tears and creases and notes all over the pages from past campaigns, and it filled Eddie with nostalgia for his first party with Kenny and Ronnie and the others. 

This module was less of an adventure and more of a guide for DMs to create NPCs with a few pre-generated ones, as well as a layout for the titular Inn. Eddie would never admit it, but creating NPCs could feel monotonous and was his least favorite part of creating his campaigns. He’d rather be designing villains and crafting dungeons and puzzles and monsters. Besides, there were a few in here that Kenny had used before that he thought would work for the next adventure. 

The last time he had seen this book it had been sitting on the dining room table at Kenny’s place over winter break when they had met up to shoot the shit. So how was it now sitting on his desk in the middle of school? Eddie doubted that his kid brother knew his schedule well enough to plant the book and he had thought Kenny would be showing up this week for Hellfire just to say hi. 

Forgot to give this to you yesterday. 

The sticky note that was slapped onto the front cover wasn’t signed, but Eddie had seen enough of your handwriting the other day to know it was yours. How the hell had you got your hands on this?

Every time Eddie thought he was going to leave you alone, you pulled him back in. 

This time, when he offered to carry your books, you didn’t stare at him so dumbfoundedly. You just nodded, and kept your head down at the floor as you two walked. 

“Where’d you get this?” Eddie asked, holding up the module. 

“I met your friend while talking to Zack.” you said, looking like you had personal beef with the linoleum. “He wanted to drop it off to you and I said I could hand it over. Then you ran off before I could.”

It was as good a reason as any. 

“You didn’t read any of it, did you?” Eddie asked, his voice overly suspicious for dramatic effect. “It’s full of dark magic and satanic spells. Really intense stuff.” 

“I opened it out of curiosity and my wrist started hurting again.” your voice was deadpan. “I told my mother and she took me to a priest who immediately performed an exorcism. I am no longer allowed to have pea soup.” 

Eddie laughed, genuinely laughed harder than he meant to. He threw his head back like a little kid, and the sound of his mirth echoed through the hallways and forgot that he didn’t know what your deal was with him. In a moment like this he could pretend that you two could have been friends. 

For a second, he wished you two were, unknowing in that moment you were wishing for the same thing. 

“I didn’t read it.” you lied after his laughter had died down. You juggled your books as you swapped them out at your locker and grabbed your lunch box. Eddie would never know that you had rushed your math homework this morning at school before handing off a copy to Danny, as you had stayed up far too late reading the module and taking notes. 

“Good, I’d hate to be the one to corrupt your pure soul.” Eddie said, which made you snort loudly in turn. 

“Good, because I’m saving that for someone special.” you said, looking at him for a moment before realizing you were mad at the dirty floor and looking away. You were quiet for a few seconds, and Eddie was about to say something before you spoke up again. “Sorry about yesterday. I panicked.” 

Once again, you were apologizing but he wasn’t sure what exactly for. Was it for calling him and Dustin freaks? Probably not, that was just true. 

“Guess you really needed that homework, huh?” Eddie asked. 

You just shrugged, with a nonchalance reminiscent of how he’d responded a few days ago when you were asking about where he lived. He knew a touchy subject when he saw it.

“He’s not hurt is he?” you asked. “Your friend, I mean. The freshman.” 

“Henderson? He’s fine. He’s a fighter.” Well, technically he was a bard which didn’t exactly have the best hit points. But the kid was scrappy, and had faced worse bully encounters. 

“That’s good.” you sighed. 

“He says you saved his ass.” Eddie said casually. “If you hadn’t shown up and freaked out things might have been ugly.” 

Your face scrunched up. “Well, glad I could help. Danny’s an idiot. It was a crap shoot if he even knew what the homework was.” 

Once again, Eddie delivered you to Stacy and declined her invitation to sit with them. For a moment, he considered taking up her offer just to see what you would do. He imagined the faces you’d make if he sat across from you and Stacy; if you had been that mad at the floor just from him walking next to you, then you’d probably end up burning a hole in your lunch by sitting with you. 

With the final bell of the day rung, Eddie found himself walking into Benson’s class with you as the last student staggered out. The two of you sat at the front desks, waiting for your marching orders. 

After a few minutes, Ms. Benson looked up at the two of you. “What are you two doing here?” she asked. 

Eddie looked at you, and then back to Ms. Benson. “We’re here to help with Spring Day?” It was more of a question than an answer. 

“Hm? Oh, no you’re not.” she said. “That’s what the Student Council is for.” 

This time you and Eddie looked at each other, and you spoke up. “But you said that if we helped you’d give us extra credit.” 

“No.” Ms. Benson said again. “That wouldn’t be allowed. I had you two come to do personal detention to make up work. That’s all. You two can go now.” 

“This was detention?” you asked. 

“Am I still banned from Spring Day?” Eddie added. “And what was all that work for anyway?” 

Ms. Benson sighed deeply and spoke slowly. “I would never have any of my students take over any part of planning a school event if they were not part of the student council. Even if I did I would never give them a task that I, myself, was given. You two are done. Go.”

Neither of you needed to be told twice. The two of you got up and left the room quickly, closing the door behind you. 

“…Did she just pawn her work onto us?” you asked, looking at him with so much confusion that your issues with him or the floor were ignored for the moment. 

“Yup.” Eddie said, shaking his head with a chuckle. 

You rubbed your face, looking out a deep sigh. “At least we did get some extra credit?” 

“Looks like I’m still banned from Spring Day.” 

“Is it really that fun anyway? None of the places we called seemed… fun.” you said. 

“It’s more fun than sitting in detention all day.” Eddie replied. “I was just gonna skip anyway.” 

“I guess we’re done then.” Did you sound disappointed? Must be his imagination. 

The two of you walked in silence to the parking lot. Eddie found himself unusually quiet, reflecting over the last few afternoons with you. He would be the first to deny it, but he was almost disappointed. When the two of you were alone, you were nice to be around. 

“Ah. Well, shit.” 

Eddie looked at you, and then followed your gaze to the parking lot where he saw Stacy riding off  with Chrissy Cunningham. 

“I take it that was your ride?” Eddie asked. 

“Not officially,” you sighed. “Thought I’d catch her before she left. I wouldn’t wanna be the third wheel anyway.” 

Third wheel? Chrissy’s sparkly signature on your cast didn’t give off ‘third wheel’ to him. 

Eddie considered leaving you here, you probably had a ride home with your parents later in the day. 

“Need a ride?” he asked, not knowing which answer he wanted from you. 

“I… really?” you looked up at him. “I’m in the opposite direction of Forest Hills.” 

It would be so easy to decline, rescind his offer. 

“I’m going that way anyway.” Eddie shrugged, lying through his teeth. “I need to swing by somewhere first anyway if you don’t mind.”

If he scrounged up some change, he could make a quick stop. 

“I’d honestly really appreciate it.” you said, sounding genuine. “I don’t mind if you need to stop somewhere. I’d rather be anywhere else right now.”

Taking to heart that you meant the school and not his presence, he led you to his van. He strode forwards faster, using the distance to shove some things into the back seat as quickly as possible so that there was room for you. His van was messier than usual, it usually was in the colder months and he’d been telling himself for weeks that he’d clean it soon. 

You didn’t say a word or make a face as you hopped into the passenger side seat. Eddie’s van made a startling noise before coming to life and you winced as his radio blasted music on max volume. 

Eddie quickly scrambled to turn it down to a level more reasonable for normal ears, and you relaxed a little. 

“What are we listening to?” you asked, glancing down at the small stack of tapes on his center console. 

“It’s a mix tape I’m working on for Dustin.” Eddie said. “Only the first side is done.” 

“The freshman from the other day?”

“Yeah, I’ve been giving him a good lesson in rock and metal.” 

“What about minerals or crystals?” 

It took a moment for your joke to register completely with Eddie, and he stared at you for a moment. “No.” he said bluntly. 

“I thought witches liked crystals!” 

“Witches aren’t a playable class. Wizard would be the closest, maybe a mage.” Eddie said. “There might be a specialist wizard that would use crystals as components. Some spells might need them.” 

“Your game is a lot of work, huh?” you asked. “There’s a lot to remember.” 

Once again, you were showing interest in his game. There had to be some common ground there and once again, Eddie was never the type to turn down earnest questions about the game that gave him a feeling of belonging. 

“Oh yeah.” he agreed, shrugging off his jacket and tossing it into the back seat. “It’s easier if you’re just a player, but when you’re running the game you have to remember everything else.”

“Are those real?” you asked suddenly. “Your tattoos, I mean.” 

Eddie looked down and held out his arm towards you. “They better be with what I had to pay for them.” he said. Tattooing was technically illegal in Indiana, and so he had to really search for someone who was willing and able to mark him up. He had to pay and barter his way through what he currently had. 

Your hand was hesitant and surprisingly gentle as you touched the ink Wyvern on his arm. There weren’t exactly a ton of people in Hawkins with any kind of tattoos, as they didn’t really reflect the wholesome image of an upstanding citizen. 

“Did they hurt?” You asked, looking closer at his arm, as if you were really taking in the details. 

“The one on my collarbone hurt like a bitch.” Eddie admitted, pulling his shirt down to show off the black widow. 

“I like the bats.” you said. “I think they look badass.”

“They were the easiest ones for me.” Eddie said, trying not to look too pleased with the compliments. 

“They look better than a bunch of random signatures.” you said, touching the cast on your arm. Eddie looked it over, and remembered the thick expo marker he had jacked from one of his classes. 

“How attached to Jason Carver’s name are you?” Eddie asked. 

“Not at all. I didn’t have a choice with that one. Chrissy wanted to sign it and he was there so…” 

“Perfect.” Eddie grabbed the marker and pulled off the cap with his teeth as he pulled your cast towards him. “Any requests? Should be easy enough to cover up.”

“I- anything. Dealer’s choice.” There was a challenge in your eyes that Eddie wasn’t about to turn down. 

Being careful not to cause any harm to your wrist, he made quick work of scribbling a couple of bats on your arm over Jason’s name. It wasn’t his best work; the texture of the plaster of your cast wasn’t exactly the easiest to draw on, but he managed. The result was a colony of bats, with one turned into a dragon for good measure*. 

When he released your arm, you took a look down at it and smiled- one of those real smiles that you had given him a few days ago. You were attractive when your face was relaxed like that. 

“So, am I a badass spawn of Satan, now?” you asked with a look in your eyes that gave Eddie a weird but excited feeling in his chest. 

“Not exactly, but if you walk around with that you might end up a social pariah which is a good starting point.” He shrugged, finally starting to pull out of the parking lot. 

“I guess I’ll have to start somewhere.” 

The two of you were a few blocks away from the school when Eddie had an idea. If you were really interested in the game and being a Spawn of Satan, he should take you to the next best thing to Hellfire Club.   

Eddie pulled into the parking lot of the shopping center, not noticing how quiet you had suddenly become. He didn’t always have the cash to get something from the game shop, but- “I need to pick up some dice anyway, I think one of the freshmen is eating mine. Let’s go.” 

“No.” 

Eddie looked over at you and you were looking guilty, like you’d rather be anywhere else. You had your head down again, now deciding that the old can of TAB near your foot was the real problem. 

“There’s not gonna be anyone in there. It’s usually just Chris working.” Eddie said. “He’s kind of an ass, but-”

“I can’t.” your voice sounded a bit choked. “You go ahead. I’ll guard the car.” 

“Are you-”

“Dude, just go. It’s fine.” You snapped. 

It was the most openly hostile you had been to his face, and Eddie felt a flare of anger in him and he got out of the van. He was pissed as he got the dice, and pissed as he drove you back home in silence. 

Fine, he tried. With you it was one step forward and a mile back. You could hang out in private but wouldn’t date to be seen with him anywhere else. 

You gave him directions to your home, and there were times where you looked like you wanted to say something but couldn’t. 

When he finally pulled up into your driveway, you hopped out fast but didn’t close the door yet. You didn’t look at him when you spoke. 

“Sorry. I just- I can’t go in there. It’s not you.” 

“Right.” Eddie said, not believing you. He was starting to get annoyed at your constant apologizing. You’d say something, then apologize, and then the cycle would repeat. 

“I mean it!” you looked up at him. “I- I just can’t go in there.”  

“Why not?” Eddie said. 

You looked guilty again, and your looked like you were going to panic at the question. 

“Don’t worry about it.” He finally said, running his fingers through his hair. “I’ll see you around, I guess.” 

You closed the door without protest, and you watched as he drove away. He saw you through his mirrors as he drove down the street and you looked… bad. For a moment he felt like he was making a mistake, but when you kept insulting him and turning around to apologize… what was he supposed to do? He’d seen this pattern before. 

“Stacy…. What the fuck is wrong with me?”